Sonny's Forum Replies

Hi Ben, could you add UK sludge / doom band, Ghold please?

I haven't listened to Poppy before, but have seen her plastered all over RYM as she seems to be a darling of the cognoscenti over there. Well, I think it is fair to say that this is not aimed at me and so my opinion is irrelevant. To me this sounds like someone has made a mashup of Avril Lavigne, Kittie and Evanescence, thrown in a few recycled Slipknot riffs and Linkin Park backing tracks, then employed a world class marketing team and pursuaded people they are listening to something new and exciting. There is nothing for me at all in this and all I got out of it was disinterest. I hate giving out really low marks, but I asked myself if I listened to every metal album ever made, would this be in the bottom ten percent and I would have to say, yes it would, hence the score.

I want to try to expand my metal listening a bit this year and thought the clan monthly features would be a good source, but it hasn't exactly got off to a sterling start. I won't be writig a full review for Negative Spaces because it would be unfair on the strength of just one listen, but I just couldn't do it again. Sorry Saxy, I hate dumping on other people's picks, but I just don't get this at all.

0.5/5

FUCK, YEAH!!

Here's my review:

The NWOBHM produced some exciting and exilharating releases for the time, but it also produced it's fair share of utter dross too. Released in 1982, this four-track EP from Melbourne's Taipan showcases what would certainly have been considered one of the better releases from the NWOBHM - if they had been from Melbourne in Derbyshire that is, rather than Victoria. Anyway, fuck geography, because this is a terrific little release that brings Diamond Head's Lightning To the Nations springing to mind.

The riffs have that hard-rock-influenced NWOBHM catchiness that the best of the UK scene had to offer with a driving, propulsive quality that would guarantee maximum headbanging action. The riff of opener "Breakout" certainly wouldn't have sounded out of place on Diamiond Head's classic debut, such is it's quality. The guitar solos are supercharged affairs, reminding me quite a lot of Phil Campbell's Motörhead leadwork, coming thick and fast, just like the doctor ordered and are my favourite part of the EP. Most of the vocals are performed by guitarist Dave Zerafa who, has some variety in his delivery. On "Breakout" he has a punky, aggressive edge to his voice similar to Iron Maiden's Paul Di'Anno, yet on second track, "Lady" he sounds much more like Diamond Head's Sean Harris, with even hints at Robert Plant-esque seductive tones. The vocals on final track, "The Cellar" are handled by bassist Emilio Sarpa, however, who has a similar style to Zerafa, although I think D.Z. is technically the better singer.

As a metalhead who was well immersed in the NWOBHM at the time, I can confidently say that had these guys been supporting Maiden or Saxon back in '81 down at my local venue then they would have been lapped up by me and my mates, that's for damned sure. The riffs, the solos, even the production, scream a band that just "get" what was going on in the metal new wave of the 1980's and has an authenticity that many retro acts have tried unsuccessfully to emulate. This is indeed an early 80's metal hidden gem and is right up there with some of the best shit hitting the streets way back when. For fans of Diamond Head, Blitzkrieg and Saxon.

4.5/5

I think I may have a slightly different take to most, but here's my review:

In 1992 diSEMBOWELMENT released this three-track EP of material which would eventually show up again on the band's seminal "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" album, released the following year. The first two tracks, "The Tree of Life and Death" and "A Burial at Ornans" are quite rough and ready and are re-releases of rehearsal demos recorded in March of 1991, with only the last track "Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores" being recorded specifically for release on this EP. I must be honest and admit that I have constantly struggled with the legendary status of "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" and there is something I find much more appealing here, particularly in the stripped-back versions of the first two tracks. Listening to the version of "The Tree of Life and Death" presented here alongside the later version, the drum sound is a lot less prevalent than it is on the album version, sitting more where I would expect it to in the mix of a doom metal album so that when the blastbeats hit they don't swamp everything else like they do on the album version. I think the generally more scuzzy production on the EP suits the material better as well, the heavy echoing effect of the album being unnecessary here, so that it sounds more natural than the album does. "Transcendence..." has a greater clarity for sure, but I am not convinced that that is to the benefit of the material because the foetid, abyssal nature of old-school death doom is really suited to lo-fi production values such as we have here on the EP.

OK, comparisons with it's younger and bigger sibling apart, what do we have here? Well, three fairly lengthy tracks of extreme metal that cover quite a few bases during their runtimes, from blasting death metal, through the hulking, ominous death doom that was taking off big time with certain sections of the early Nineties' extreme metal scene, to something even slower and more morbid-sounding, specifically during "A Burial at Ornans", which foreshadows the funeral doom of Thergothon's "Fhtagn-nagh Yog-Sothoth" demo, still six months in the future. The EP exudes a menace and primally evil aura heightened by Renato Gallina's abyssal demon's low, rumbling growl for a voice which may well induce nightmares in the mentally delicate. The skull-crushing weight of the simple, lumbering riffs may have been one of the heaviest things ever set down on tape up to that point in time, with a disgustingly filthy guitar sound that only adds to this gravitational magnitude. Both "The Tree of Life and Death" and "A Burial at Ornans" feel quite epic, involving multiple tempo changes during their runtimes, but epic in a huge, decayed and rotting carcass kind of way.

The closing track of both this EP and the full-length, "Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores", sounds more like it's later incarnation, minus the opening ambient intro. Obviously recorded at a different time to the first two tracks, it has a much clearer production which gives the lead guitar a chiming, ringing tone in contrast to the deep, bestial roar that passes for vocals and the thundering basswork. The drums are further up the mix than they were on the other tracks, but not to the extent of the album and are perfectly suitable. This is the track more than the others which foreshadows the advent of Funeral Doom on the extreme metal scene, it slowing to barely a crawl at times, predicting the arrival of the likes of Esoteric, who were formed the same year as this came out. Coincidental? I think not!

I am really glad to have had the chance to check this out because it has solved the irksome puzzle as to why I never got on board with "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" when it appears to be right up my street. The answer is, because of the production, which I find to be incredibly jarring, especially the almost St. Anger-level annoying snare sound. The actual material, as presented here on the EP, is excellent, so that is the only explanation for my resistance to the later full-length.

4.5/5

I would suggest Mayhemic's "Toba" - only discovered it yesterday mind thanks to Sonny, but it is superb blackened thrash metal.

I would second that pick. I had forgotten about it because I haven't rated it yet.

I will have to champion Fange from my list of just one industrial metal release from 2024.

The  only Revolution release I have on my list is Drown in Sulphur's "Dark Secrets of the Soul", which I actually dug quite a bit. I know, me and deathcore eh!

Critical Defiance are my year end favoirites in The Pit and Sovereign were good too. 

Pentagram Chile had a decent album out and Vulture's "Sentinels" was an enjoyable slab of speedy thrash.

Should the Darkthrone record be considered for The Guardians award guys or do you think it’s a stretch to call it a heavy metal release?

I think it's true place is in The Fallen, Daniel. I don't think it belongs in The Guardians or The North.

I really don't think Darkthrone's album belongs in The North to be honest.

Spectral Wound is my black metal AOTY, but Antichrist Siege Machine's "Vengeance of Eternal Fire" is a great war metal album.

Above Aurora, Darkspace and Departure Chandelier all turned in solid efforts in 2024 as well.

Hauntologist's "Hollow" is a nice slab of posr-black if anyone is up for that.

Oranssi Pazuzu's "Muuntautuja", tagged as avant-garde metal, is my obvious answer here. I haven't rated anything else that would qualify for The Infinite I don't think.

Ulcerate and Blood Incantation are sitting as my #1 and #3 releases of 2024 currently, so I would wholeheartedly support those two. 

I'm always a sucker for a Nile album and their latest, "The Underworld Awaits Us All" marked a bit of a return to form as far as I was concerned.

Elsewhere, Diabolic Oath, Abhorration and Invocation put out very good albums.

Grand Magus' latest, "Sunraven" is the first that comes to mind and Morgul Blade's "Heavy Metal Wraiths" was pretty good too. I quite liked the new Saxon, "Hell, Fire and Damnation" and for me it was a bit of a nostalgia trip.

Ataraxie's "Le déclin" is an absolute must for any fan of funeral doom and was shaping up to be my AOTY until I crossed paths with "Cutting the Throat of God".

Monolithe's death doom concept album, "Black Hole District" is also excellent and Scald's "Ancient Doom Metal" is where to turn for your epic doom fix of 2024.

Mourning Dawn's "The Foam of Despair" is my top-rated atmospheric sludge album of the year and The Flight of Sleipnir's "Nature's Cadence" is definitely worth a listen, as is Ponte del Diavolo's "Fire Blades From the Tomb".

This is quite a short album, so I managed four or five listen throughs this morning. Here's my take on it:

Carnophage are a five-piece from Ankara in Türkiye, forming in 2006 and "Matter of a Darker Nature" is their third full-length, following eight years after previous effort, "Monument". I haven't listened to the band before, but here they play a style of technical and brutal death metal, the likes of which I have not encountered too often. Now I sometimes have issues with both technical and brutal death metal and, at least in part, those issues are present on "Matter of a Darker Nature". Not so much with regards to the brutal DM side of their sound as that is actually very well presented, being aggressive and vicious-sounding with thick, juicy riffs and a suitably bellowing vocal performance from singer Oral Akyol. However, it is the technical aspect of their sound that I am struggling with, or more accurately, the technical complexity of the songwriting. I can stomach a certain degree of technical complexity in my metal, but at the point where it feels like technical dexterity and songwriting complexity become an album's prime reason for being, sacrificing the coherency of the individual tracks, then I tend to check out. Unfortunately, for me anyway, Carnophage are all-in on the technical side and, in my opinion, often to the detriment of the individual tracks. I found myself really getting into tracks like "Until the Darkness Kills the Light" or the ominous-sounding title track, but then sudden changes of phrasing and tempo interrupt the flow and make the tracks feel choppy and disjointed, for no apparent reason. I know that the issue here is mine and mine alone and I have to admit that the band do sound incredibly adroit technically, with a very tight and focussed delivery and when they start to lay down a brutal riff I'm thinking "yes, here we go", only to have said riff supplanted by an enforced tempo or directional change and me once more feeling frustrated with them.

Multiple listens have tempered my annoyance with the technical aspects and when the band hit it right I found them to be very impressive purveyors of the more brutal end of the death metal spectrum, but an album like this will always leave me with reservations as I find the staccato nature of the music incredibly wearying. Still, good luck to them because even though it isn't exactly my cup of tea, I can tell they are a talented bunch and for those who are in the market for what they are offering, I am sure they deliver the goods.

3.5/5

Thanks guys. No problems with those noms, Daniel, they should fit in just fine.

For February, Vinny, please:

Celtic Frost - "Fainted Eyes" (from "To Mega Therion", 1985)

Kingdom of Hate - "Prayer" (from "The Search", 2009)

Massakre - "Red September" (from "Crematorium", 2005)

Mayhemic - "Triumph Portrait" (from "Toba", 2024)

Metallica - "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" (from "Master of Puppets", 1986)

Nimrod - "Mortality of the Sea" (from "Legacy of the Dead", 2023)

Possessed - "Burning In Hell" (from "Seven Churches", 1985)

Razor - "Edge of the Razor" (from "Violent Restitution", 1988)

For February:

Atomic Aggressor - "Faceless Torment" (from "Sights of Suffering", 2014) 

Blood Incantation - "The Stargate [Tablet III]" (from "Absolute Elsewhere", 2024) 

Coffin Curse - "Reeking Filth of Ages" (from "The Continuous Nothing", 2024) 

Diabolic Oath - "Oracular Hexations Leeching" (from "Oracular Hexations", 2024) 

Invocation - "Hypnosis" (from ""The Archaic Sanctuary" (Ritual Body Postures)", 2024)

January 2025

1. Black Sabbath - "War Pigs" (from "Paranoid", 1970)

2. Kyuss - "50 Million Year Trip (Downside Up)" (from "Blues for the Red Sun", 1992)

3. Anathema – “Eternal Rise of the Sun” (from “We Are The Bible” E.P., 1994) 

4. Acid Bath - "Jezebel" (from "When the Kite String Pops", 1994)

5. Pallbearer - "Mind Burns Alive" (from "Mind Burns Alive", 2024)

6. Ceremonium - "Into the Autumn Shade" (from "Into the Autumn Shade", 1995) 

7. Neon Nightmare - "Promethean Gift" (from "Faded Dream", 2024) 

8. Slomatics - "Tunnel Dragger" (from "Estron", 2014)

9. Enchantment – “Kneading With Honey” (from “Dance the Marble Naked”, 1994) 

10. Unkirk - "Sky" (from ".burial", 2017)

11. Christbait – “Loose” (from “Yeast” E.P., 1992) 

12. Black Oath - "Wicked Queen" (from "To Below and Beyond", 2022) 

13. My Dying Bride – “The Crown of Sympathy (Remix)” (from “I Am The Bloody Earth” E.P., 1994) 

14. Ataraxie - "Vomisseurs De Vide" (from "Le déclin", 2024) 

Get well soon, Vinny.

Hadn't heard about the new Messa album, but definitely looking forward to that one. Avatarium, not so much.

Seattle husband and wife, drum and bass doom duo Year of the Cobra return with a new album at the end of February. War Drop is the first promo.

Pentagram have an album out at the end of January too. The opening track, "Live Again" is the first single.

The UK's premier atmospheric black metal outfit, Saor, are back with a new album on 4th February, entitled "Amidst the Ruins". Although I thought the last album, 2022's "Origins" lacked bite, Andy Marshall is still a quality producer of epic and sweeping soundscapes, as evidenced on the promo for the album's title track.

Prog-thrashers Cryptosis have a new album due in March. I really enjoyed their 2021 debut, "Bionic Swarm", so I am quite looking forward to this one. "Faceless Matter" is the lead-off single and although it doesn't sound as brilliant as anything on the debut, I am still hopeful for this one.

Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God (2024)

Due to my inbuilt aversion to overtly dissonant or technical death metal I have been somewhat reticent about checking out Ulcerate's latest, but year end is looming and I can't let 2024 pass by without listening to what has been almost universally acclaimed as the number one metal album of the year. I'm really glad I did too, because "Cutting the Throat of God" is an amazing album. I guess in the hands of true masters, even personally challenging material can transcend the inbuilt resistance listeners may have to music that resides well outside their usual comfort zone. What enables Ulcerate to break through my own personal issues with this challenging style of death metal is that they never allow the technicality or dissonance to affect the flow of the tracks. Too often these genres are too choppy and compositionally messy for me, but here the tracks maintain a logical and organic development at all times, with the dissonance and technicality always serving as a tool to relate that which the band wish to communicate rather than becoming the be-all-and-end-all in an attempt to show how clever the musicians are. This is an atmospheric version of death metal that is composed of shades and textures rather than riffs and blastbeats (although those are present). Heavily influenced by acts like Neurosis, Ulcerate utilise the death metal toolbox to produce an emotionally-charged post-metal style of death metal.

The aesthetic of Cutting the Throat of God is based around existential anxiety and the ultimate futility of organised belief structures, hence the atmosphere of melancholic dread that permeates the instrumentation. I don't think that the slightly off-kilter clangourous nature of much of the guitar leads, suggesting the desperate chiming of church bells as if declaring their inability to provide solace, is accidental, but is proof of the band's attention to detail and is testament to their songwriting skills. The constant shifting of tone from introspective and morbid, to angered and explosively violent, further deepens the atmosphere of existential impotence.

Now this is not an especially new aesthetic within extreme metal circles, but very rarely have I encountered such a compelling and coherent expression of nihilistic dread. This success is entirely due to the adroitness of the musicians involved, both technically and compositionally. It is supremely evident that even though much of the album is meant to engender a feeling of chaotic confusion, the songwriting is supremely tight with not a single note out of place and is very far from being confused or chaotic in it's production or execution. Special mention must go out to drummer Jamie Saint Merat whose drum patterns are so complex and precise that I often found myself zoning in on them. So interesting do they sound that I have the feeling I could listen to the drum track in isolation and find it utterly compelling.

I don't wish to give the impression that this is a lightweight affair, because it is exceedingly heavy at times, but sheer heaviness is not the primary directive here and the lighter moments deepen the impact of the heavy. Paul Kelland's bellowing, gutteral roar also contributes to the album's surface-level heaviness, whilst perfectly encapsulating the philosophical frustration and existential dread expressed in the lyrics. The chiming leadwork, despite it's slight dissonant quality, is often deceptively hooky and melodic, with me finding some of the guitar phrases leaping unbidden into mind throughout the day, such is their memorability. The guitar phrasing is also such that it sounds very much like there are certain recurrent themes surfacing throughout the tracks, tying the whole album together.

For me, this is an example of technical dissonance with real soul, which is unusual for a style that I often find to be emotionally sterile. Now, in truth, I don't have the technical knowhow to properly dissect "Cutting the Throat of God" and I may have read too much into it's perceived themes and concepts, but all great art holds a mirror up to the beholder to some extent, so maybe this just resonates with something deep within me. Whatever the reason, this feels like one of the most personal and affecting metal releases I have ever heard and will now, despite some tough competition, almost certainly be my AOTY for 2024 and head towards the upper echelons of my all-time favourites list.

5/5

I completely agree that metal is in a very healthy state right now, Daniel. Only the future will tell if it is a golden age or not, but there sure have been plenty of top-tier releases over the last several years. This year alone has seen a fistful of albums that have pushed the boundaries of metal with Oranssi Pazuzu, Ulcerate, Blood Incantation and Monolithe all putting out amazing records. Along with high quality releases of a more conventional nature - the dominance of South American thrash, the resurgence of Darkthrone, a plethora of OSDM and black metal and the continuing high quality of several progressive metal acts all suggest that metal's blood is still strong and likely to remain so for some time. We are definitely a long way from the early 2000's doldrums now and long may it continue.

Diabolic Oath - Oracular Hexations (2024)

Diabolic Oath are seemingly a secretive three-piece from Portland with members named Chthonian Incursor, Ominous Void and The Temple, none of whose roles within the band are public knowledge. According to their Bandcamp page they use completely fretless guitars and a simultaneous triple vocal attack "to depredate the listener's psyche", so I think it is fair to say that we are not in melodic metal territory here. What we do have is a blackened death metal assault that is very close to war metal, in fact the first couple of tracks are very much in the vein of true war metal, with the cavernous, noisy and chaotic aesthetic of true war metal sitting very much to the fore. That isn't the totality of what is going in with Oracular Hexations, however, as the band explore a multifarious number of ways to achieve metallic extremity, even within these opening two tracks. As the initial war metal assault subsides, the latter half of opener "Rusted Madness Tethering Misbegotten Haruspices" takes on an almost tribal-sounding, hulking chug of a riff, and the second, "Serpent Coils Suffocating the Mortal Wound" at one point employs a weird, almost out-of-tune gothic rock guitar lick alongside the more usual disso-death guitar work.

Diabolic Oath lean towards the death metal end of the war metal spectrum and after these initial couple of tracks the death metal aspect dominates the album, with the blackened side mainly being represented by some of the vocals. "Winged Ouroboros Mutating Unto Gold", for example has an old-school feeling to it that hints at death doom, albeit noisier and more chaotic than, say, Autopsy, but displaying a similar approach to death metal. In a similar way, "Fragmented Hymns From the Globulous Cruciger" feels rooted in tech-death, but you have to take into accout the cavernous, noisy production of the album and dig in a bit to appreciate the more technical and tighter guitar and percussion work utilised here.

Each of these first four tracks clock in between four and five minutes, but the final couple are much longer affairs, with next track, "Gathering Hordes From the Outer Worlds" running for almost ten minutes and the closer, "Oracular Hexations Leeching", just over eight. These longer, final two tracks tend to veer between looming and ominous doominess and sheer unmitigated violence and actually constitute my favourite part of the album. A healthy serving of death doom metal is always likely to garner a thumbs-up from me and the way that it is interspersed by blastbeat-driven, outbursts of violent, high-tempo death metal makes for a very satisfying mix.

I have to confess that, for me, this wasn't an immediate attention-grabber, with my initial listen-through being a somewhat underwhelming affair as the dissonance and chaos overwhelmed me a little and found me starting to drift away, but this, certainly for me at least, is a release that rewards persistence. Once I got to grips with the noisy production and the trappings of the technical and dissonant aspects and got them lined up in my mind then it became much easier to appreciate the quality of what Diabolic Oath were attempting (and pulling off) here. That, I think, is to produce a real bamboozling piece of extreme metal that has the feeling of a chaotic and loose headlong charge, but which is, in fact, a highly controlled, tightly written and technically adept slab of extremity that explores the ominousness of threat and danger in contrast to the sheer explosive brutality of violence. Whether that is an apt interpretation or not, either way, this is an impressive and thought-provoking chunk of metal that certainly deserves more attention than it has currently been receiving.

(Strong)4/5

I've been checking out the playlist over the last couple of days and enjoyed it very much. It started off really strongly, I love the Abhorration, Resurrection, Bendiction, Disincarnate and Dismember tracks, a couple of which I already knew, but most I didn't. The Thorium, Obituary and Vomit Forth tracks were also brilliant.In fact most of the playlist was great, although only Ceremony of Silence out of the last five resonated much with me and the final track by Submerged left me scratching my head to be honest. Someone will have to explain the attraction of those squealing pig vocals to me one day! Overall though another sterling effort by all involved, so thanks guys and merry xmas to you all.

Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere (2024)

Blood Incantation are back with their signature progressive, cosmic death metal sound after their detour into the world of ambient that was their 2022 Timewave Zero project. Absolute Elsewhere basically consists of two lengthy tracks, "The Stargate" and "The Message" that make up each side of the vinyl release, with each track being further split into three parts. This time around they have delved even further into progressive realms than they did with 2019's Hidden History of the Human Race, with recognisable influence from several legendary 70's progressive artists, most noticeably Rush, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Tangerine Dream with TD's Thorsten Quaeschning's guesting on the second part of "The Message", which sounds just like an excerpt from the german progressive electronic crew's 1975 Rubycon album.

Of course, after their dalliance with a wholly ambient release last time out, most metalheads want to know if the band still have their hearts in the metal world and the answer is, undoubtedly they do and death metal is still the basis upon which their more expansive sound is built, but they are also on a mission to expand the horizons of the genre and bring in other influences so that it can continue to evolve, thus giving it an even brighter future and allowing it to reach out to a wider audience. Just within the opening segment of "The Message" we are treated to a Rush-like intro, with Geddy Lee-like staccato basslines and Alex Lifeson-influenced lead work leading into a ripping death metal riff, thundering blastbeat and Paul Riedl's growling vocals. These soon subside into a Robert Fripp-style gentle guitar and synth break which itself morphs into a short mellotron-led section (reminiscent of the synths Queen produced for the Flash Gordon soundtrack) which is then supplanted by a Dave Gilmour-esque solo. That then makes way for an eastern-flavoured death metal riff that could have come from the Nile songbook - and we are still only eight minutes into the damn thing! This may sound like a whole lot of disparate influences being jammed together and on paper may not seem that appealing, but the skill of the songwriting is that it takes these multifarious threads and weaves them together into a seamless tapestry of varying colours and textures in an entirely organic and unforced manner, with faultless and seemingly logical transitions, even between the most brutal and gentle passages. The opening extravaganza merely illustrates the ambitious vision that Blood Incantation have for their version of progressive death metal, with a fully-formed science fiction concept behind the album and a wide-reaching pallette of sonic pigments with which they illustrate this vision, metal alone being insufficient to convey exactly the feeling they require.

It is easy, I suppose, to get into a game of I-spy-the-obvious-influence, and on the intitial playthrough I was probably as guilty as anyone of that, but when you become more acquainted with the album I think the technical mastery and skilled songwriting make all that irrelevant and when heard as a coherent entity, rather than the sum of it's parts, that is when it hits the listener as to exactly how good this is. Despite all the progressive tendencies, it is still the effectiveness of the metal constituents upon which the success of the album ultimately rests and we are certainly in safe hands there because when the band let rip then they absolutely nail it with impeccable timing, consummate technical skills and some lethal riffs. The third part of "The Message" is probably one of the most "metal" parts of the album with a devastating set of blastbeats, some complex tech-death shennanigans and a deadly and brutal main riff, complemented with some nice eastern motifs that does more than cement the band's death metal credentials.

I was initially a bit sceptical as to whether Absolute Elsewhere was deserving of all the accolades being poured upon it, but this is undoubtedly one of those albums that increases the returns dependent upon what you put into it. Multiple listens are mandatory to really appreciate exactly what Blood Incantation are delivering here and it is gaining in stature with me as I uncover a little bit more of it's complexity and quality with each playthrough. As a metal album this is a cosmic-themed triumph, being at times exceedingly brutal and heavy, at others complex and cerebral, but it is also much more than that, thought-provoking and visionary with a willingness to embrace influences from outside the metal sphere which lend it an accessibility that will undoubtedly draw in new acolytes to the world of extreme metal and surely that is a good thing.

I find a lot of cutting edge metal to be a bit beyond my capacity to enjoy, particularly the excessively dissonant or avant-garde, but Absolute Elsewhere has opened up a brave new world of ambitious and forward-thinking metal made from distinctly recognisable parts that is as listenable as it is ground-breaking. It is hard, if you really listen to this, to not feel refreshed and energised by the possibilities this opens up for the future of death metal inparticular and extreme metal generally. I am sold.

4.5/5

Capilla Ardiente are a five piece from Santiago, Chile and features a couple of members of doom crew, Procession, along with vocalist, Felipe Plaza Kutzbach, of Deströyer 666, who also provided vocals for this years "Ancient Doom Metal" album from legendary russian epic doomers, Scald. They play epic doom metal, and I mean with an emphasis on the EPIC. Only one of the four tracks on offer here clock in at less than ten minutes and musically and aesthetically they have as much in common with power metal as they do doom. Sure, the riffs are pure epic doom metal, but the overwrought and histrionic vocals, the shred-like guitar solos and the melodramatic songwriting all scream power metal to me. I can hear where they have clearly taken influence from the likes of Rich Walker's Solstice or Solitude Aeternus, in fact Kutzbach has toured with Solstice as the band's live vocalist on a couple of occasions, but where the great epic doom acts succeed is that they keep the inbuilt pompousness and excess of epic metal under control and exercise restraint when utilising the more overblown aspects of the genre, whereas here the chileans give free rein to all the most bombastic elements of their sound. Make comparison, for example, between Felipe Plaza Kutzbach's performance here compared to that he turned in for "Ancient Doom Metal" and I think that most people would agree his performance is more OTT and less controlled than that he gave on the Scald album. sounding eminently more like a power metal singer than a doom metal vocalist. For my money, epic doom is best when built around the aesthetic of a mournful and sombre yearning for lost glories, whereas "Where Gods Live and Men Die" feels more like power metal's grandiose and bombastic celebration of hegemony.

This certainly isn't a bad record by any means, when they get it right, such as with the hugely mournful riffs and more reflective vocals of "Now Here. Nowhere." it is actually very good, but too often it emphasises the epic side of the genre at the expense of the doom-laden and that will always illicit are more negative response from me. Performance-wise, the guys are technically very good and the production is nice and meaty, occasionally allowing the more doomy moments to shine through. The songwriting is quite good, although they go for a bit more complexity than is the norm for the genre, giving the individual tracks somewhat of a progressive feeling. Undoubtedly, it is a more memorable affair than the previous album with some very effective riffs, but its overly bombastic approach leaves me unlikely to be returning to it too often in the future I think. Still, if your tolerance for this more overblown approach is higher than mine, then there may well be plenty of meat for you to get your teeth into here but for me it's all a bit too much.

3.5/5

Here is my review:

I am quite the fan of the short-lived Aussie war metallers, but with only two full-lengths to their name I wouldn't say they are my favourite war metal band. The more prolific Archgoat probably take that title, but Bestial Warlust did release my favourite war metal album, that being 1995's follow up to this month's The North feature, Blood & Valour, which is still my only five-star rated war metal album to date.

Vengeance War 'Till Death is a brief burst of blasphemic violence. With it's seven tracks clocking in at a mere 31 minutes it is an unrelenting salvo of blastbeats, frantically manic riffing and howling roars that is so murderously intense that half an hour is more than sufficient a runtime to satisfy the deeply primal instincts that live deep within us. Bestial Warlust must be one of the most aptly named bands in all of metal, their monicker perfectly summing up exactly what the band deliver. War metal is always a visceral and almost physical experience and few encapsulate this call to the animal side of us better than these guys. The production plays a massive part in the success of Vengeance... being filthily noisy and distorted enough to give it that seat-of-the-pants, chaotic sensation, whilst maintaining sufficient clarity to allow the individual contributions to be discerned and prevent the whole from descending into one godawful messy blur.

The drumming is a withering machine gun stream of blastbeat bullets that is testament to the indefatigable power of skinsman Markus Hellcunt and is prominent without swamping the guitars. The riffs are each distinct, which is not always true of many war metal releases whilst maintaining the supercharged and frantic pacing the genre requires. The solos screech like tormented souls, obviously having roots in the Slayer school of six-string torture, but taken to the absolute extremes where even Kerry King feared to tread. Bloodstorm spits fire and venom in a torrent of vitriolic howls and roars that encapsulates the sheer demonic evilness of war metal's blackened heart and leaves no one in any doubt as to which side of the "eternal struggle" tha band's music sits.

I am not going to pretend for one minute that this is going to appeal to most metalheads, I understand that war metal is an acquired taste, but for those who worship at the filth-strewn altar of extreme black and death metal, this is damn close to as good as it gets. In fact I have got so heavily into this album over the last day or two that I am going to up my otriginal four-star rating by half a mark.

4.5/5

Just for reference, if you are checking this out on Spotify, they have made a right cock-up of the track listing. The short intro track isn't on the original album and they have all the titles wrong - track 2 on Spotify is actually "Bestial Warlust", track 3 is "Dweller of the Bottomless Pit" and so on, until you get to track 6 which is "Hammering Down the Law of the New Gods" / "Holocaust Wolves of the Apocalypse" with the first part being a short intro.

Kaatayra - Toda história pela frente (2020) 

Kaatayra is one of the solo projects of brazilian multi-instrumentalist Caio Lemos who released his debut under the name in 2019 and went on to release 5 full-length albums in two and a half years. "Toda história pela frente" ("All History Ahead") is the fourth of these, being released in August 2020. Kaatayra plays atmospheric black metal infused with Caio's native brazilian folk music that makes for a refreshing change and adds a nice twist to the genre, bringing a different aesthetic to the music away from the euro-centric folk most usually encountered within the genre. Gone are the frigid, icy soundscapes more readily associated with european and north american black metal, to be replaced by a warmer, more celebratory atmosphere, where the natural environment is not so much a hard and inhospitable setting which must be endured, but a life-giving and nurturing domain that is to be acclaimed.

"Toda história pela frente" consists of three lengthy epics and was Kaatayra's most black metal album up to that point. I also think it was the album where he best integrated the black metal and acoustic elements together, with a noticeble increase in consistency as his songwriting matured. Not that I am saying there was too much wrong with his previous albums, but there was sometimes a jarring feeling that the two disparate elements were being forced together rather than the tracks evolving the relationship between the metal and the folk-led in a more organic way as they do here. Sometimes he takes a completely fresh approach to black metal and even plays the riff on acoustic rather than electric guitar, complete with accompanying blastbeats which works surprisingly well. Elsewhere he weaves some nice synth-led ambient threads into his musical tapestries, with an especially soothing section coming in the latter part of opening track, the 17-minute, "O Castigo Vem à Cavalo", giving the listener a moment or two of calm which lends an even greater impact to the final climactic blackened explosion.

When Caio let's the black metal side of things rip, then he sounds more savage and visceral than he had at any point up until this, with his ragged shrieks, frantic tremolo riffing and pummelling blastbeats providing an aggressive, red-blooded assault on the listener's ears with the opening minutes of second track "Toda mágoa do mundo" being the prime example. Yet, despite this, there is a rhythmic quality to the riffs on even the most vicious sections that prevents the tracks from sounding spiteful or hate-filled, but rather impart the notion of a more wholesome "nature red in tooth and claw" ethos instead. The latin rhythms of the folk-led parts are also one of the major distinctions between this and the vast majority of the atmospheric black metal pack. The euro-centric folk incorporated by most black metal acts oftentimes gives a menacing, ritualistic and even occult vibe to proceedings, but the dance-oriented latin rhythms deployed here make for a much more positive and celebratory atmosphere.

I don't think I can give this more praise than saying that, in certain respects, it reminds me of Austin Lunn's Panopticon. Similar to Panopticon it has taken the local folk music of the artist that sits outside the scope of black metal that we are used to and has incorporated it in such a way as to impart a different, more positive and human ethos into what can so often be a misanthropic and negative style of music, giving the listener an entirely different experience of black metal than they may have expected.

4.5/5

 I was only referring to Sweet Leaf myself, Daniel. There are loads of examples of genres being backwards compatible. One example is Discharge weren't called D-beat when they started, they were termed Second Wave, like GBH and The Exploited. It wasn't until others started using the same drumming patterns that the D-beat genre name was coined. I'm also pretty sure that Cocteau Twins weren't termed Ethereal Wave and The Smiths weren't tagged as Jangle Pop until much later either. 

As most of the very early heavy metal came from the psychedelic scene, it had far more in common with what we now term stoner metal than the heavy metal of Maiden, Manowar or Mercyful Fate.

Agreed....

Today we'll be starting a new release in Black Sabbath's 1971 masterpiece "Master of Reality". I'm really interested to see what subgenre I end up with here after my outcomes for Sabbath's first two records ended up sitting outside of the general consensus. Let's start with the opening track "Sweet Leaf" which I find to be a really easy one as it's the very definition of stoner metal in my opinion.

Quoted Daniel

Thought of this when I came upon a poll on the RYM forums which states:

"Some uninformed people are voting Sweet Leaf / After Forever stoner metal.

Stoner metal begins in the 90s with Kyuss, this song is from 1971, what do you think?"

You are then asked to vote yes or no to the proposition, which is currently 7:7. 

The member who posted it is a regular poster on RYM's "Official Metal Forum" which I never post on but like to read sometimes to see what the metal "hipsters" are saying and this shows why I don't engage in there. How can you debate with someone who holds such a dogmatic view as "genre X only started with album Y" and not understand that nothing musically develops in a void. Is this person seriously hearing no Sabbath elements in Kyuss at all?! But we here at MA are the uninformed ones? Do me a favour!!

Invocation - "The Archaic Sanctuary" (Ritual Body Postures) (2024)

What the fuck is going on in Chile nowadays? It must be something in the water or the mountin air! They seem to have captured the spirit of extreme metal better than almost any other local scene on the planet as we hit the 21st century's quarter-way mark. Churning out album after glorious album of extreme metal nirvana, the area of Chile centred on the capital Santiago and nearby Valpairiso leads the vanguard of the world's Trve Metal Hordes seeking to conquer the despised Legions of the False. OK, all good-natured hyperbole aside, there is definitely a healthy and burgeoning metal scene centred around Chile's capital that is currently pumping out some of the most exciting and aggressive metal to be found on the planet, in my opinion.

Invocation are yet another relatively new band throwing their hat into that swirling maelstrom of a scene with this their debut full-length, which follows a couple of EP's released in 2018 and 2020. They are a three-piece from Valparaíso, the three members only going by aliases, bassist Sense of Clairvoyance, drummer Sense of Clairaudience alongside guitarist and vocalist Sense of Premonition. Unusually for the chilean scene, the three don't appear to be members of at least five other bands, with Invocation being their only outfit from what I can tell (but who knows).

The Archaic Sanctuary is a fairly brief affair, it's eight tracks clocking in at under 35 minutes, with most hovering around the four minute mark. Invocation play a traditional form of death metal, but one that has a sharp-edged savagery derived from blackened edges with an overall filthy tone and a demonic darkness that reminds me somewhat of war metal aesthetics, albeit slower and cleaner. The riffs are heavily distorted buzzbombs that come thick and fast, varying from ripping burnups to hulking, mid-tempo, chuggier affairs. The solos are fairly functional with no self-indulgence or flashiness to distract the listener from the relentless assault the riffs are subjecting them to. Drum-wise, Sense of Clairaudience has a busy and energetic style with an impressive array of blasts and fills at his disposal and a ready willingness to deploy them, but despite the manic energy he displays, he doesn't swamp the riffs. Possibly the snare is a little too present at times and may occasionally distract, but not that much and it certainly isn't a big deal. The vocals are probably the most black metal aspect of the sound, with a harsh, barking roar that reminds me of Marduk's Legion and which sharpens up the bludgeoning edge of the guitar tone and the drum battery.

In truth The Archaic Sanctuary doesn't do much that most extreme metalheads haven't heard before and may leave those seeking the latest Ulcerate-worshipping opus being dismissive, but this is a band who understand the fundamentals of extreme metal and who have served up a withering and pummelling experience for any ardent moshpit denizen to lose their shit to in the knowledge that it will not let up even for a second.

4/5

Coffin Curse - The Continuous Curse

Coffin Curse are a chilean duo comprising guitarist, vocalist and bassist, Max Neira and drummer Carlos Fuentes. Both are members of Lovecraftian death metallers, Inanna and although this is my first exposure to CC, I am quite a fan of Inanna (and chilean metal in general), so positive vibes all round going in. The Continuous Curse is the duo's sophomore full-length, coming four years after the debut, a significant amount of that time presumably taken up working on Inanna's 2022 album, Void of Unending Depths, before they could get to work on this.

The Continuous Nothing is forty-odd minutes of energetic, old-school death metal with a no-frills approach and as such, is exactly my cup of tea. I like CC's unfussy approach here, they just get on with delivering bludgeoning riffs backed up by really solid rhythm work. The basswork is thick and well presented in the mix, as is quite often the case with chilean metal of all genres, while Carlos' drumming is a big feature, being busy with all manner of fills and blasts, whilst mainting excellent timing and driving the tracks along at a fair old clip.

Max's guitar work is mostly about the riffs. To be sure there are solos, but they aren't really that big a deal, they are decent enough, but are functional and are not an aspect that particularly stands out. Producing riffs is most definitely what Max is about and at this he is very accomplished indeed, the album's runtime being absolutely chock full of 'em. The album has an inbuilt aggressiveness about it that leans towards the early brutal death metal bands, but the riffs also have a melodic accessibility alongside a fair bit of tremolo riffing that tempers that brutality somewhat and which, combined with a "looser" approach ensures that it sits well within the realm of the old-school rather than the brutal. Max's vocals are in the deep, gurgling, growling style with which I am sure we are all familiar, but which he delivers with conviction.

So, overall, The Continuous Nothing delivers no surprises to anyone even remotely interested in death metal. But Max Neira is an astute writer of riffs and the duo's delivery brings out the best of a tried and tested formula that is admirably heavy and threatening-sounding. If you are just looking for some good, old-fashioned death metal for a headbanging frenzy session then Coffin Curse have the prescription you need, but if you are looking for challenging brain food instead, then maybe look elsewhere.

I have settled on a 3.5/5 rating, but I was constantly wavering between that and a four, so decided to err on the side of caution.

Monolithe - Black Hole District (2024)

Black Hole District is french doomsters Monolithe's tenth album and marks yet another step in the band's musical and conceptual development. There is a narrative structure to the album, with the story taking influence from science fiction sources such as Blade Runner and Dark City. The story's protagonist, living on an Earth that faces annihilation due to the Moon having left it's orbit and falling inwards towards the planet, discovers, by a convoluted series of events, that he is in reality an android, not a human and this discovery looks set to cost him his life as the powers-that-be seek to terminate him for his knowledge.

The band have always made a "thing" of the track timings on their releases, which ties into their concepts, with Black Hole District's ten tracks alternating between one-minute instrumentals and exactly ten-minute long main tracks. Thankfully, as is always the case with the band, the specificity of the track timings doesn't feel forced and they never feel over-extended or truncated to accomodate these timings. I have a feeling that the band see themselves as storytellers every bit as much as musicians nowadays and, to this end, they have incorporated even more progressive elements into their music to the point where the progressive and the doomy are now held in perfect balance. This balance allows them the freedom to convincingly weave epic science-fiction tales without compromising on the inate heaviness of death doom metal, which is still, despite all the progressive flourishes, the heart and soul of Monolithe's sound.

A new element they have brought in, presumably specific to this story, is 80's style synths, in particular they have used the Yamaha CS-80 popularised by Vangelis, who is particularly influential here, especially (but not exclusvely) on the one-minute interludes which act as intros to the five main tracks, each one sounding like a snippet from the Greek's Blade Runner soundtrack. They have also brought in guest vocalist Frédéric Gervais of french progressive black metallers Orakle to provide clean vocals alongside new guitarist and vocalist Quentin Verdier's deathly growls, which gives the album a nice textural variation, vocally. Alongside the vocals a number of spoken word sections serve to advance the story and act as introductions to the events of the main tracks.

All this is the vision of the main man behind Monolithe, guitarist and keyboard player, Sylvain Bégot, who is the person solely responsible for all the band's songwriting and lyrics since their earliest days. I think that Sylvain's single-minded control of the artistic input imparts a cohesive consistency to Monolithe's output that may have become diluted by more diverse inputs. It has been obvious since the first album that, similarly to Ivar Bjørnson with Enslaved, Bégot's vision has always been beyond the boundaries of the genre conventions within which he works, even as he has no wish to completely set those conventions aside. He has now become exceedingly effective in how he weaves the doom and progressive aspects together and produces legitimately progressive doom metal as a result, with very few peers in the field. He is now able to convincingly produce a cinematic version of doom metal, that is able to impart the emotional and atmospheric highs and lows of great cinema. The poignancy of the closing track, "Those Moments Lost in Time", for example, is heart-wrenching, despite the heavy, looming main riff, as it references the Blade Runner death scene of Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty.

Black Hole District may not be unrelentingly heavy enough for some death doom acolytes, but for doomsters who love a cinematically conceptual tale, musically well-told with exemplary musicianship and songwriting then Monolithe are very much at the head of the pack. Although Blood Incantation will take all the plaudits for 2024 in this field for their new album, I don't think anyone should dismiss Black Hole District's claim to progressive extreme metal's science fiction concept album of the year.

4.5/5

Just watched these videos and, sadly, I'm not really that surprised. So many people on social media wish to project an image of themselves that is duplicitous, why wouldn't it infect the extreme metal world too? Like the guys on the videos say, it's not that the drummers in question are poor musicians in the first place - I wish I was one tenth as talented - but society demands perfection whether in looks or ability, so dishonesty has become the norm. 95% is no longer good enough, 101% is the minimum requirement now that everyone is under the microscope. 

What is really sad is that knowing they are being duplicitous must have a detrimental effect on their esteem and mental well-being.

Advertising and marketing are not my strengths I'm afraid, Daniel. In fact I see them as one of the many contributors to modern society's ills. I don't use social media either - I have never been on Twitter, Facebook or any of the other social media sites and neither do I want to. I guess The Fallen playlist will have to stand or fall on it's own merits, then.

I was wondering if the changes to the monthly playlist aesthetics and compilation techniques had led to any improvement in the consumption on Spotify. Does anyone have any feedback?

Hi Ben, could you add Scottish drone metal duo Unkirk please.

Here's a Bandcamp link to their one and only album:

https://unkirk.bandcamp.com/album/burial

Some brief notes and comments on this month's playlist:

1. Candlemass - "Born in a Tank" (from "Candlemass", 2005)

One of my favourites from Candlemass' great 2005 return-to-form album. Some uptempo epic shit to get us going!

2. Moonspell - "Wolfshade (A Werewolf Masquerade)" (from "Wolfheart", 1995)

I recently checked out Moonspell's "Night Eternal" album and enjoyed it massively, so I thought I would dig a bit deeper and that resulted in this catching my attention from their debut, particularly the guitar work in the latter part of the track.

3. Reverend Bizarre - "Doom Over the World" ( from "II:Crush the Insects", 2005) [suggested by Vinny]

An old Rev Biz classic suggested by Vinny. I love this track, being compelled to nod my head and tap my foot whenever I hear it, so no complaints from me!

4. Anathema - "Cries on the Wind" (from "Eternity", 1996) [suggested by Sonny]

I have been spending a little time filling in the gaps in my listening of the Fallen charts here on Metal Academy and "Eternity" was one of the highest-rated releases I hadn't heard, so I had to put that to rights, with this penultimate track being the one to especially stand out. A real melancholy, creeping-under-the-skin cracker this one with a cool guitar solo.

5. Ministry – “Filth Pig” (from “Filth Pig”, 1996) [suggested by Daniel]

I honestly didn't think Ministry were capable of producing a track as great as this. Good pick Daniel, count me impressed. Sickly, crawling industrialised sludge - sounds like the description of the UK river network!

6. Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas - "The Wreck of the S.S. Needle" (from "Mariner", 2016) [suggested by Sonny]

Another great discovery from my Fallen charts completionist project. Obviously I am familiar with CoL, but I thought Julie Christmas was a stand-up comedienne! As atmospheric as we have come to expect from the band, but Ms. Xmas adds an extra dimension and they sound even more menacing and ominous than usual. A top discovery.

7. Shape of Despair – “Monotony Fields” (from “Monotony Fields”, 2015) [suggested by Daniel]

I am well familiar with this as I bought a digital copy from Bandcamp when it came out and I am always up for some funeral doom, especially as performed by experts like SoD. Another nice pick from Daniel as Monotony Fields is often overlooked in favour of the first two albums, but is a great listen nonetheless.

8. Eyehategod – “Blank” (from “Take as Needed for Pain”, 1993) [suggested by Daniel]

Another album I have become well acquainted with over recent years. Desolate, bleak sludge that comes from a place of pain and frustration. A top example of real sludge metal with loads of hardcore attitude.

9. Castle Rat - "Dagger Dragger" (from "Into the Realm", 2024) [suggested by Vinny]

I have had this on my "to listen" list for a little while, so thanks to Vinny for nominating this one. Nice, catchy chunk of trad doom that reminds me very much of Jess and the Ancient Ones' "Astral Sabbat". Good enough to see me checking out the album at some point I think.

10. The Flight of Sleipnir - "Vingthor" (from "Nature's Cadence", 2024) [suggested by Sonny]

I selected this for submission as I bought the album on vinyl and have been playing it a fair bit over the last few weeks. This is my favourite and a nice indication of where thay are now.

11. Earth – “German Dental Work” (from “Demo 1990”, 1990) [suggested by Daniel]

Much as I love some of Earth's work, the lack of production quality of a demo recording does them absolutely no favours.

12. Grin - "Torre del Serpe" (from "Hush", 2024)

I love the riff on this, although the song is a bit too brief and is over just as it really gets good.

13. Sporae Autem Yuggoth - "Disguise the Odius Spirits" (from "...However It Still Moves", 2023)

I'm always a sucker for some Lovecraft-themed doom metal, so when that also involves a relatively new chilean death doom crew then I am doubly interested. Hulking and ominous-sounding old-school death doom that isn't innovative, but that is still very atmospheric and heavy. Could do with a bit more bottom end though (unless it's my headphones).

14. In the Woods... - "The Recalcitrant Protagonist" (from "Pure", 2019) [suggested by Sonny]

This is from my favourite In the Woods... album since their debut and I have been giving it a fair bit of airtime over the last couple of month's, so thought a track from it would be in order. I love the epic melancholic feel of this track and this is how gothic metal should sound.

15. Pallbearer - "Cruel Road" (from "Heartless", 2017) [suggested by Vinny]

One of Pallbearer's best tracks since the debut album. A nice warm up for a dive into the new album.

16. Dystopia - "Sleep" (from "The Aftermath", 1999) [suggested by Sonny]

I've been getting well into Dystopia just lately. Noisy, pissed-off sludge, just as it was originally meant to be.

17. Toadliquor – “Fratricide: A Requiem” (from “Feel My Hate - The Power Is the Weight - R.I.P. Cain”, 1993) [suggested by Daniel]

This is another sludge metal release I have got more into over the last year or two, so it's good to see a track from it getting nominated here. I like to round the playlists off with some dark shit and this certainly fulfills that criteria. It's pretty fucking heavy too.

18. Yith - "centuries of horror" (from "dread", 2016) [suggested by Sonny]

A seriously overlooked blackened doom outfit who are one of the best in the field. This just exudes horrifying, misanthropic menace and is a genuine black metal / doom hybrid and, I think, a good way to end the playlist.

I have a couple of suggestions for January if you want them, Daniel, but it's fine if you don't have space:

Kanonenfieber - "Gott mit der Kavallerie" (from "Ausblutungsschlacht", 2024)

Nile - "The Underworld Awaits Us All" (from "The Underworld Awaits Us All", 2024)

I can fit the Kanonenfieber track but not the Nile one Sonny. Do you want to be included in next month's time allocations? If so then I'll reduce everyone's time limits to 30 minutes each. Let me know ASAP.

Yes please, Daniel, if it isn't a problem.

As you know, Daniel, I am a relatively new acolyte of The Horde and I don't have enough long-term, in-depth knowledge of the genre to confidently negotiate the dividing lines between the different sub-genres, so I tend to stick with the consensus as far as tagging goes. Your unwillingness to tag Unquestionable Presence as tech-death may well explain why it appeals to me so much, when I struggle with most technical metal, especially technical death metal. I am much more well-disposed to progressive death metal, however and am more than happy to go along with a prog-death tag.

When I started upping my death metal consumption in order to expand my knowledge of the genre and pave the way for acceptance into The Horde a couple of years ago, along with Death, Atheist jumped out at me with regards to the tech-death sub-genre of which I had previously been wary (and still am to some degree). "Unquestionable Presence" is one of my absolute favourite metal albums, not just tech-death or even just death metal, but metal as a whole. Anyway, here is my review:

As I have iterated before on many occasions, I am not a fan of technical death metal (or tech-thrash either for that matter) but my experiences with Atheist have been nothing but incredibly positive. The reason for this, I think, is that these guys don't make the technicalities of their music the be all and end all, but rather they make the jazz elements and their technical expertise work to enhance the high quality death metal that they produce. I mean, these guys produce absolute killer riffs, some of which still contain a deal of thrashiness, such as the main riff on the title track, or on The Formative Years, and that is what I want to hear when I listen to a death metal album - riffs, riffs and more riffs... oh and a certain degree of brutality, another aspect of their sound that is well and truly taken care of. So with that aspect of their songwriting sorted they then give themselves license to enhance and elaborate upon their ideas with jazz-influenced sections, multifarious time changes and displays of technical skill a great deal of their contemporaries could only marvel at, I suspect.

The drumming and basswork are superb and sound fantastic, Tony Choy's bass playing in particular is impressive as he weaves his basslines in and out of the sound, at times in step with drummer Steve Flynn like conjoined twins, such as during the technical sections of An Incarnation's Dream where the two combine to weave musical magic. Kelly Shaefer has a pretty mean death growl, not so deep and rumbling as some, but with a nice vicious snarl to it. Shaefer and Rand Burkey also turn in some mean solos that howl and squeal nicely but, man, I just can't get over them riffs.

At a mere 33 minutes this may appear to be quite a slight album, but Atheist just pack so much into it that it is more than enough to sate the appetite. In fact I would argue that knowing when to stop is also a lost art amongst too many modern metal acts who insist on issuing bloated hour-plus efforts that can oftimes test the patience and I, for one, would much rather have half an hour of this level of quality. So, first and foremost, Unquestionable Presence is a top-drawer death metal album with enough brutal-sounding riffs to stop a charging rhino, but Atheist held ambition enough not to be satisfied with "just" that, they further employed their technical prowess and songwriting skill to push the boundaries of what death metal could be and can justifiably be considered one of the seminal bands (along with Chuck Schuldiner's Death) of the technical death movement. I'm just not sure if the later acolytes of Atheist always concentrated on writing brilliant death metal songs first and foremost like the massively impressive Floridians did, so for me, this is one of the absolute premier tech-death albums and, despite my reticence regarding tech-death generally, I could listen to this all day long.

5/5

Checked out the playlist whilst working in the garage earlier today. Another nice list, Vinny, thanks a lot. 

Some "new to me" bangers on this one - the new Destruction, Acid Force, Enforced, Lich King and two of the best were left for last with Urn and Ragehammer both killing it. I had originally nominated Altar of Sacrifice for next month, so that's obviously a real winner for me, along with Indians (it's always good to hear tracks from Among the Living) and Sodom. I love the Antiverse album, so their's was a winner. The Sepultura track was pretty good as well - I've never listened to them post-Max, so maybe it's time for that to change. Extol was the only track that did nothing for me, so all-in-all a very successful list that has turned up some new discoveries for me to check out.

Thanks Sonny, that Sepultura album is the Feature for The Pit this month.

Oh, right. A good opportunity to check it out then.

Checked out the playlist whilst working in the garage earlier today. Another nice list, Vinny, thanks a lot. 

Some "new to me" bangers on this one - the new Destruction, Acid Force, Enforced, Lich King and two of the best were left for last with Urn and Ragehammer both killing it. I had originally nominated Altar of Sacrifice for next month, so that's obviously a real winner for me, along with Indians (it's always good to hear tracks from Among the Living) and Sodom. I love the Antiverse album, so their's was a winner. The Sepultura track was pretty good as well - I've never listened to them post-Max, so maybe it's time for that to change. Extol was the only track that did nothing for me, so all-in-all a very successful list that has turned up some new discoveries for me to check out.

Unfortunately, I have never got to grips with "Transcendence into the Peripheral". It's been a long time since I last tried so maybe it's due a revisit, but I found it to be very disappointing on previous occasions.

That fact has always very much surprised me Sonny as "Transcendence into the Peripheral" was nothing short of life-changing for me personally & seems like something that is tailor made for your taste profile. It's never been surpassed as the best doom/death release I've ever heard & the influence it's had on many of the current crop of bands is as clear as day. Each to their own though of course.

Yes, exactly Daniel. I am as perplexed as you are as to why it has never resonated with me because, as you say, it seems to be exactly my sort of thing on paper. I really need to try again, because I am not one of those who dogmatically sticks to his guns and I would love to join the party. There are just so many people whose opinions I respect who love that album that I know the problem is mine alone. 

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja (2024)

I really don't know how to tag Oranssi Pazuzu anymore. The avant-garde metal tagging assigned to their latest seems a bit of a cop-out for material that sits outside the scope of existing genre understandings, especially as I generally find avant-garde metal to be unlistenable, which this patently is not. But, in reality, I can't currently come up with anything more appropriate. It seems that these Finns are so far ahead of their time that it is questionable if their music is even earth-based anymore, sounding like the kind of stuff I would expect them to be listening to in the more unsavoury areas of the gigantic space orbitals of Iain M. Banks' twenty-fifth century Culture civilization.

The black metal aspect of their sound is merely vestigial at this point, surviving only in the harsh, shrieked vocals and the psychedelic element so prevalent on their last couple of albums is also consigned to history for the most part. I always felt that the psychedelic component gave them a bit of warmth and even hope, but Muuntautuja feels like a more depersonalised and bleak affair. Oranssi Pazuzu have leant heavily into atmospherics for some time now, but here they go even further, taking elements of noise, sludge, electronica and drone to weave tracks that are all about the texture and atmosphere rather than any kind of song and, as such, are far more akin to post-metal than they have been before. Atmospherically, Muuntautuja gives off dystopian sci-fi vibes within a threateningly malevolent industrial landscape, sounding as if influenced by the more pessimistic science fiction writers such as Phillip K. Dick and William Gibson, in whose worlds the overly mechanised "system" oppresses the spirit of those living under it.

The opener "Bioalkemisti" kicks off with a throbbing drum and bass line accompanied by Juho Vanhanen's throat-shredding shrieks and from the very beginning it is evident that things have taken a turn for the darker. Frantic riffing and siren-like synths join the affray and the track becomes more and more apocalyptic and menacing with machine-like industrial stylings that scream "Dystopia". The title track feeds further into this narrative with it's trip-hop beats and spacey electronic embellishments, especially when the robotic spoken word section kicks in early on, dehumanising the atmosphere even more before it explodes in a frustrated-sounding, heavier, sludgy industrial second part. I don't want to do a track-by-track runthrough, but highlight the content of the first two tracks to try to impart some flavour of what to expect from Muuntautuja. The heavier sections are loaded on bass and distortion which pushes the instrumentation in a noise-driven direction, with a favourite trope here being overlaying these heavy sections with a tinkling piano and Juho's manic shrieks. The lighter electronic parts are based on hypnotic, industrialised beats that can occasionally come off as almost ritualistic, as if in praise of some almighty Machine God and I feel that the layering of these heavier and lighter sections is fundamental to the success of the album. Pacing and tempo also varies massively from hulking, sludge and drone-like parts to frantic blasts of unhinged mania that provide further stark contrasts in atmospherics.

Ultimately, no amount of words I can spew on to this page will give you an adequate picture of what Oranssi Pazuzu have served up with Muuntautuja, so you owe it to yourself to fire it up and experience the album firsthand. I must admit I am unsure where to place this in OP's discography. I think it is an endlessly fascinating release that has seen yet another redefinition of the band's sound, but is it better than the amazing Värähtelijä and Mestarin kynsi albums? For the time being I am going to proffer a "no", but that does not by any means infer that I don't like this, because I love it. It's just that I am unsure how much just yet. One thing is for sure, every new Oranssi Pazuzu release is an event worth getting yourself up for.

4.5/5