Sonny's Forum Replies

July 2023

1. Worship of Keres - "Book 3" (from "Bloodhounds for Oblivion", 2016) [submitted by Sonny]

2. Decadence Dust - "Lighthouse" (from "Lighthouse", 2023)

3. Black Capricorn - "Snake of the Wizard" (from "Cult of Blood", 2022)

4. Toadliquor - "Gnaw" (from "Feel My Hate - The Power Is the Weight - R.I.P. Cain", 1993)

5. Liturgy - "Veins of God" (from "Aesthethica", 2011) [submitted by Daniel]

6. Church of Misery - "Come and Get Me Sucker (David Koresh)" (from "Born Under a Mad Sign", 2023)

7. Nightfucker - "Poisoned Wine" (from "Leechfeast / Nightfucker Split EP", 2023)

8. Windhand - "Halcyon" (from "Eternal Return", 2018) [submitted by Vinny]

9. Messa - "Babalon" (from "Belfry", 2016)

10. Tragedia - "Tiamat" (from "El libro de Enoc", 2023)

11. Minotauri - "Doom Metal Alchemy" (from "Minotauri", 2004)

12. Capilla Ardiente - "The Spell of Concealment" (from "The Siege", 2019)

13. Rippikoulu - "Pimeys yllä Jumalan maan" (from "Musta seremonia", 1993) [submitted by Daniel]

14. Warning - "Footprints" (from "Watching from a Distance", 2006) [submitted by Vinny]

15. Khanate - "To Be Cruel" (from "To Be Cruel", 2023) [submitted by Sonny]

Yeah, Diabolical Conquest is marginally my favourite too, but Onward to Golgotha is just so primal that it really appeals to the caveman in me I suppose. I am just so at home with such an uncomplicated, menacing and utterly abyssal sound that I can't honestly rate it any lower.

What is of massive regret for me is that it had taken me until I am sixty years old to find a sound that I feel so deeply. Sure I've dabbled with it via the likes of Winter's Into Darkness, but bands like Incantation and Autopsy produce something that I feel like I connect with on a molecular level. Sounds like bullshit I know, but it is what it is.

Incantation - Onwards to Golgotha (1992)

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

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

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

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

5/5

A mixed bag for me this month with a huge spread in appeal (or lack of it), but I did get through them all again.

Vinny gets the award for top feature this month with Apparition's glorious celebration of OSDM., Feel.

The Fallen: Hexer - Cosmic Doom Ritual (2017) 5/5

The Horde: Apparition - Feel (2021) 4.5/5

The Pit: Nocturnal Graves - An Outlaw's Stand (2022) 4/5

The North: Lunar Aurora - Andacht (2007) 4/5

The Gateway: Katatonia - Sky Void of Stars (2023) 4/5

The Revolution: Suicide Silence - The Black Crown (2011) 3.5/5

The Sphere: Strapping Young Lad - Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing (1995) 3/5

The Infinite: Dødheimsgard - Black Medium Current (2023) 2.5/5

The Guardians: Darkmoon Blade - Darkmoon Rising (2022) 2.5/5

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

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

4/5

I don't really know enough blackgaze albums to generalise I suppose, as it's a genre I have little interest in, but the Sadness track just felt so jarringly out of place in The North playlist that I felt I needed to ask the question. The blackgaze I have heard strikes me as using the black metal toolbox to produce music that is so far away from black metal's roots as to be an almost unrelated style of music. As for folk metal not sitting in The North, what would be the alternative home for it, because I can't really see it elsewhere?

I think I am probably just feeling a bit disillusioned with black metal and the direction it is taking. I understand the desire to evolve a musical style, but a lot of modern black metal acts seem to be moving so far away from the artistic core and aesthetic that it is losing it's appeal for me personally. I'm not trying to set myself up as some "guardian of trve kult black metal" or anything like that, as I think some of the more modern stuff is great, but some of it is a step too far for me and I will have to leave it to you young 'uns!!

Not enough evil in my North playlist?! That's something I'll have to remedy next month. 

I'm looking forward to it already!!

Interesting playlist this month Ben. It felt like it had a very "modern" slant to it. I must admit I was longing for a bit more savagery and evilness as it progressed, but I guess the nature of black metal is moving ever away from what it stood for in the Nineties and it is becoming much more experimental and/or melodic as it is assimilated into the musical zeitgeist. I suppose I sound like an old bastard moaning about how things were better in my day (they were!!), but I miss the blasphemic, two-fingers-to-the-world attitude of the bands of yore. Enough bitching anyway, big plusses were Akhlys (obviously), Lamp of Murmuur and Ifernach in addition to my own choices of Árstíðir Lifsins and Emperor. I just can't get my head around Sadness being on a black metal playlist, though - sorry.

Absolutely killer playlist this month, Vinny. Nicely done, especially seeing as it was mostly free of the bigger names. The Cacophony and Sieges Even tracks were the only ones that didn't work for me which, seeing as they were the technical tracks, is no great surprise. The first ten tracks especially made for a brilliant opening salvo. Must check out that Slaughterlord album ASAP.

Firstly, there are plenty of good ideas within Black Medium Current, and I really do get why people would love it. To me though, it is a bit like the Oscar-winning movie, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once with just too many ideas being crammed into it's (admittedly, suitably lengthy) runtime. I also understand that the fault is entirely mine and my lack of sophistication, or maybe intellectual capacity, are the real reason I can't wrap my head around it's myriad of ideas, but I just can't hold everything it has to offer in my head all at once. Another issue for me is, frankly, the terrible clean vocals that are the real villain of the piece here. I much prefer the black metal sections because it means we get a few moments of respite from this vocal torture.

I did enjoy how they employ the keyboards and the occasional excursion into space rock was welcome. To be honest, though, I think Deathspell, Blut aus Nord and especially Oranssi Pazuzu do this sort of thing much better (or at least, more to my own taste). I have been determined to give it sufficient listens to allow it to reveal itself, but after four full listen-throughs, I have been relieved every single time when it has ended, so I guess it is just one of those albums that really isn't for me.

2.5/5

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

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

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

2.5/5

Carcass - Necroticism - Descanting the Insalubrious (1991)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4/5

Oh, yes, nice one Vinny!

This is most definitely centred right on my death metal g-spot! The instant it's gloriously downtuned, cavernous riffage infested my earbuds, I was hooked. OK, it's Autopsy worship does absolutely nothing original, but is so well executed and is just so much to my taste that I don't intend to criticise it for not diverting from the template set down by Chris Reifert and company more than three decades ago now. Although the album as a whole is somewhat generic, in that they don't try to do anything unexpected, the band have a genuine grasp of what this corner of the death metal world requires.

The riffs are massive with some real killers amongst them, although they don't push the needle much beyond medium-paced with very little blasting even on the pacier sections, the beginning of Perpetually Altered probably marking the album's peak velocity. The subsonic vocals even rival Reifert's growls for sounding like the ravings of some infernal, abyssal demon and are a big part of the draw of Feel for me. The downtuned riffage and generally cavernous atmosphere make it feel more doomy than it actually is, as they don't stray into purely death doom territory as much as you think, slowing the pace to a crawl only for a short time during most tracks. Each of the tracks are artfully constructed and the variety in pacing throughout is worked very well. An extra layer of atmosphere is supplied on the most doom-laden track, Nonlocality, with the inclusion of thin but atmospheric keyboards that reminded me of the keys used by Thergothon on their classic Stream From the Heavens with the thinness of the keys' sound being in marked contrast to the meaty heft of the guitar sound.  The production is very effective with a cloying thickness to the atmosphere, whilst still possessing sufficient clarity to do each of the instruments justice and never descending into an indiscernable morass.

This is most definitely the kind of release I can revisit time after time as I live for this kind of cavernous sound, absorbing it like plants absorb sunlight. Consequently a vinyl copy is winging it's way from Amazon to Sonny's crypt-on-the-hill as we speak!

4.5/5

So, for all clans together and albums I had never heard before:

1. Incantation - Diabolical Conquest (1998)
2. Shining - V - Halmstad (2007)
3. Nehëmah - Requiem Tenebrae (2004)
4. Pestilence - Spheres (1993)
5. Ufomammut / Lento - Supernaturals - Record One (2007)
6. Gorement - The Ending Quest (1994)
7. Boris - Boris at Last -Feedbacker- (2003)
8. Henbane - Cultes des Ghoules (2013)
9. Necrodeath - Into the Macabre (1987)
10. Ne Obliviscaris - I Portal (2009)
11. Persefone - Core (2006)
12. Dead Congregation - Promulgation of the Fall (2014)
13. Coffinworm - IV.I.VIII (2014)
14. Amorphis - Under the Red Cloud (2015)
15. Helmet - Meantime (1992)
16. Monarch! - Omens (2012)
17. Neptunian Maximalism - Éons (2020)
18. Thorns - Thorns (2001)
19. Leprous - Tall Poppy Syndrome (2009)
20. Sinister - Diabolical Summoning (1993)

These are all awesome albums and some actually changed my outlook on certain aspects of metal.

I was thinking this morning how the feature releases have introduced me to some really great albums that I would possibly never have heard otherwise. So I wondered, what are your Top Ten feature releases for your clans that were nominated by other people (so no cheating with including your own nominations) and which hadn't you heard before?

I'll start of with my Top Ten Fallen features not nominated by me. An asterisk indicates I hadn't heard it previously and a double asterisk indicates I hadn't even heard of it prior to it featuring.

1. Evoken - Quietus (2001)
2. Paul Chain - Detaching From Satan (1984)
3. Reverend Bizarre - III: So Long Suckers (2007)
4. Celtic Frost - Monotheist (2006)
5. Ufomammut / Lento - Supernaturals - Record One (2007)**
6. Electric Wizard - Dopethrone (2000)
7. Boris - Boris at Last -Feedbacker- (2003)*
8. Coffinworm - IV.I.VIII (2014)**
9. Monolithe - Monolithe II (2005)
10. Monarch! - Omens (2012)**

So what are your greatest discoveries from the features?

I would just like to add my greetings, Gulasch. We are a small but inclusive and welcoming band of metal obsessives so I hope you enjoy your interactions here. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on all things metal.

Work? Ah, yes I remember it. That was the stuff that got in the way of me doing the stuff I really wanted to!!

But seriously, it's fine Ben, no problem at all.

Hi Vinny. My suggestions for July:

Bulldozer - "Art of Deception" (from "Neurodeliri", 1988)
Flotsam and Jetsam - "No Place for Disgrace" (from "No Place for Disgrace", 1988)
Hallows Eve - "Speed Freak" (from "Monument", 1988)
Whiplash - "Snake Pit" (from "Ticket to Mayhem", 1987)

Anything for July, Ben?

Fires in the Distance - Air Not Meant for Us (2023)

I felt compelled to check out Air Not Meant for Us after it's opening track, Harbingers, appeared on June's Horde playlist and caught my attention. I'm glad I did too, because it is a release that adds a twist to a well-established metal trope. It is a combination of melodic death metal and death doom, which is not so unusual, but the twist is that the piano plays a prominent and integral part in the album's six tracks, to a degree I haven't had the pleasure of really hearing before. The result of this is that the melodocism is enhanced by the piano's refrains and it also often adds a wistfulness to the tracks with it's showers of gently tinkling notes falling upon the more solid and earthy doomy riffs.

The band prove themselves to be capable songwriters with the tracks being of perfect length to establish themselves and exhibit a degree of progression without falling into self-indulgence and becoming bloated. The riffs are melodic whilst still retaining a reasonable amount of hulking heaviness and there are one or two interesting solos. The vocals are fairly standard death growls and are handled perfectly capably without standing out as anything extra special. As a general comparison they kind of remind me of early My Dying Bride shorn of any of the gothic elements that the Yorkshiremen revelled in.

However, I am not really able to dish out the highest marks to Air Not Meant for Us because of the very things that I name above as being interesting. The melodicism and wistfulness that make it stand out from the crowd also makes the album feel a lot less threatening and ominous than I usually enjoy from the very best doomy death metal and so an upper echelon score is not going to happen. This is still, however, an interesting addition to the genre and is one that I thoroughly enjoyed discovering. It is a really good album in it's own right, even if it maybe does fall just a little bit short. As a postscript, it does feature a voiceover sample of Christopher Hitchens, one of the smartest individuals I have ever heard speak, on the track, Idiopathic Despair, reassuringly telling us how death is nothing to fear even as he himself faced it.

4/5

Godflesh - Streetcleaner (1989)

I figured it was high time I gave the much-lauded Streetcleaner, one of the most well-known industrial metal releases of all time, a listen. Well, it's early days yet, but I was not blown away anything like as much as I thought I would be. However, as someone who has previously railed against people judging metal releases out of context, I will be delving into this much further over the coming weeks. One thing is for certain, and that is that I wasn't anything like hip enough to be listening to anything remotely like this back in 1989. There is much that warrants further exploration that's for sure, but it is such a well-regarded album, piling up plaudits from all and sundry, that I suppose I was expecting far more than it is reasonable to expect and as such I feel, initially, a little let down by it being merely decent rather than transcendent. I don't yet wish to ascribe a numerical value to relativise my enjoyment of Streetcleaner, as I think it has far more to offer up than I have yet discovered, so I will leave it at that until much later.

Unsurprisingly, to those who are familiar with my taste, the two doomier tracks from Fires In The Distance and Temple Nightside stood out especially to me this month and both bands will have to be subject to further exploration before long. In fact, I was really enjoying the playlist as a whole until it reached that terrible Phyllomedusa track - has he really made 280+ albums of that shit? Despite this I resisted the skip button and endured the entire 8 minutes so that I never make the mistake of listening to him again! Chop (x7)'s cybergrind was not my cup of tea either, but at least they had the decency to only last just over a minute. There were one or two others near the end I didn't much care for, Sulfuric Cautery and Extermination Dismemberment would fall into this category. The death 'n' roll of Blood Duster's Pornstorestiffi (shown on Spotify as Pronstorestiffi for some reason) was ridiculous but kind of enjoyable in some capacity. I don't know if I would like an entire album of such light-hearted dm, but as part of a playlist it was good fun. Others that hit home for me this month were Kommand, Slaughter Lord, Massacre, Suffocation and CC.

Thanks Daniel for yet again producing an entertaining playlist.

To get it our of the way first, I'm a bit surprised this is a Pit feature as I don't really hear any thrash metal here. It sounds much more like blackened death metal to me, although I have been wrong before! That aside, this is a damn good record that displays plenty of deathly musculature in it's riffing with a blackened patina that gives it a nice evil atmosphere. Nocturnal Graves are powered by main man, Jarro Raphael (aka Nuclear Exterminator) who takes on the role of lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, bassist, drummer and, presumably, also major songwriter. He is ably aided by a couple of lead guitarists in Denouncement Pyre's Paul Lang (aka Decaylust) and ex-Deströyer 666 guitarist Shrapnel.

There is no attempt to sugar-coat this deathly black attack - this is an all-out, aggressively relentless and spiteful-sounding assault on your brain. The riffs are fast and furious and, whilst not treading any new territory, are cool as fuck and hit the spot just right for anyone who loves evil-sounding extreme metal. Jarro Raphael is an impressive metal maniac - his one-man rhythm section is brutally functional and whilst he doesn't really go in for any fancy shenanigans, he is not short of ability in these departments and his performance here powers the whole endeavour and underpins the guitar work with an impetus that is as solid as it is breakneck.

The dual leads realise some tasty solos, quite often referring to heavy metal tropes as much as death or thrash metal ones and their contributions certainly help to elevate An Outlaw's Stand from out of the pack. If you enjoy guitar solos then you won't go away from this disappointed as there seem to be more than you would normally expect from a death or black metal album and these may well be the source of many people claiming this as a thrash album, although I maintain the meat of the album, ie the riffs, is firmly rooted in black/death metal. JR's vocals sound suitably spiteful and evil as he spits or vomits the lyrics out at the listener and is the most black metal aspect of the album, capturing the essential misanthropy at the heart of all the best black metal. All-in-all this is an album that is worth your time if you love straight-up, fuck everything black or death metal as it exhibits a vitality and lack of pretentiousness that encapsulates exceedingly well why I love extreme metal.

4/5

I am fully behind doing away with the atmospheric, post-, or whatever we wish to term it, sludge genre as I have never been a fan of the term. Sludge metal and post-metal should adequately cover most examples (in varying proportions, depending who you're listening to). Hexer sit more at rhe sludgy end and for them to be removed from The Fallen would be a bureaucratic travesty in my opinion as Cosmic Doom Ritual so obviously sits there rather than in the Infinite.

For some reason Devin Townsend has always rubbed me up the wrong way. He is obviously an immensely talented individual and I have no real basis for saying this, but he seems to revel in his own cleverness and his sometimes goofy humour just gets my back up. I was once lent a couple of SYL albums by a workmate (I think one was Alien), but I couldn't get into them at all. Not exactly a very promising preamble to this review then, but I did go into this with an open mind and now, after half-a-dozen full listen-throughs, I think I have probably got everything out of this that I am going to.

Industrial metal, to me, should be innately super-heavy as it is intended to replicate the sound of heavy machinery in operation and to this end SYL have been, in the main, successful in this endeavour here. The combination of the riffs and the full-blooded rhythm section, which includes both real and programmed drums, produce an impressively heavy sound that, at times, rivals even the mighty Fear Factory at their best. There are also some killer hooks in a couple of the tracks, particularly early on in the album (that again sound a fair bit like hooks FF would produce).

From what I can glean from the internet this is basically a Devin Townsend solo album with a few guest musicians as well as being songs collected from a number of demos - and it shows. Despite the nursery rhyme nonsense that bookends the album it doesn't feel at all consistent, but rather than a coherent album it feels more like a compilation of disparate tracks. This is not at all aided by Townsend's vocal performance being markedly different on nearly every track, on Goat, for example, it seems like he is just taking the piss and sounds like it is based on Bill Hicks' least funny sketch, Goatboy. That "goofy" humour, as exemplified by the awful closing track and the Black Adder-plagiarising album title, combined with Devin screaming "I fuckin' hate you" over and over on the opener like a spoilt teenage brat and ruining what is otherwise a pretty good track, turns me away from any of the good things he was doing elsewhere on the album.

Look, unlike Devin's screaming inner teen, I don't fuckin' hate this, but it is too inconsistent and exhibits an immaturity I struggled with, to be honest. There are a couple of tracks that I would be OK with on a Spotify playlist, In the Rainy Season and the groove of Critic, but other than that I am unlikely to return here.

3/5

I am always quite nervous when suggesting little-known releases as I often wonder if they are unknown for good reason, ie they aren't very good, and I just can't see it. I had a sneaking suspicion that you may enjoy it though, Daniel, as we have often seen eye-to-eye on similarly psychedelia-infested releases in the past. 

I would also highly recommend their sophomore, Realm of the Feathered Serpent, as it too is a great record. Their most recent album, Abyssal, has seen the band reduced to a duo with some stripping back of their sound and, for me, is a little bit of a step down, but it's still a good album.

When I saw that The Black Crown was a deathcore release I went to RYM to check my rated releases to see if I had anything against which to reference it. Turns out I have never knowingly listened to a deathcore album before, which is not really that surprising as I will admit that I often struggle with 'core-related releases, chiefly because I struggle with the vocals. Well, first point goes to Suicide Silence, because I had no issue at all with Mitch Lucker's vocals as they stayed well below the "shouty teenager" level that is my cut-off point, whilst remaining particularly savage and pissed-off sounding. Musically, I actually had a pretty decent time with this, although it is aimed a fair distance from my metal sweet spot. I don't aim to pretend I know what I am talking about regarding a release like this that is so far removed from my usual fare, but I did find myself getting into the groove with a fair few of the riffs and, generally, the whole did provide me with a decent amount of enjoyment on a day when I may well have been in a frame of mind for something a bit different. On several occasions I found myself thinking, oh that sounds a bit like early Slipknot, a band not to everyone's taste I know, but I think they wrote some pretty decent metal tunes and it is meant as a compliment to Suicide Silence, not as a gripe against them. There is a surfeit of angst and vitriol on display and although such anger doesn't really translate to a retired sixty-year-old walking his dog on a beautifully sunny June morning, I can still relate to the sentiment.

As a band Suicide Silence seem very tight and economical - there is very little by way of  superfluous embellishment, the rhythm section is there to drive the tracks forward, not to impress the listener with fancy fills or bass runs. The guitar sound is pretty dense and the riffs are effective with one or two killers - You Only Live Once, for example. Personally I enjoyed the second half of the album more than the first as it adds a couple of small, but cool touches that enhance the experience for me. The opening few songs feel like a band blowing off steam and are totally focussed on aggressive delivery, but after the interlude of March to the Black Crown, which provides a nice mid-album breather with it's ominous sound and choral-style vocalisations, things get a bit more interesting. The interlude is followed by my personal favourite, "Witness the Addiction" which maintains the pissed-off aura of the album, but feels more considered with it's clean vocal sections providing more accesibility without compromise. The acoustic guitar parts of The Only Thing That Sets Us Apart fit into the song very nicely too and is a nice touch.

Overall, I would contend that whilst The Black Crown will probably never feature in my top 100 metal albums, it did provide sufficient enjoyment for me to return to it at some point in the future and, rather like Trivium's In Waves, it may well be an album I turn to when I fancy something outside my usual listening fare. I must also add my agreement with both Daniel and Vinny that, whilst respecting Metal Archives right to regulate their own content, it doesn't follow that this is unwelcome there whilst Rush, Deep Purple and Scorpions are all represented. Metal is metal surely and The Black Crown is certainly worthy of it's inclusion here at Metal Academy.

3.5/5

That's two positive experiences with Revolution features in consecutive months. Maybe I need to reassess my general feeling towards the clan and perhaps I have misunderstood it all along. Conversely, maybe the last two features have just been outstanding choices.

Here's my new review:

Cosmic Doom Ritual is perhaps a little rougher around the edges than it's successors, but I believe that emphasises the dirty sludginess of their sound more than a crisper and cleaner sound would. The album consists of three tracks each of 11 or 12 minutes duration, long enough for them to develop each track's ideas but not so long as to become self-indulgent and bloated. Each features an atmospheric sludge / post-metal building of tension and atmosphere through their runtime, arriving at a cathartic crescendo as it resolves itself, but each of the tracks has a very different character and all three have their own diverse atmosphere. They are also marvellously evocative and I always find myself conjuring amazing mental pictures to accompany the soundtrack that the album provides. Opener Merkaba, for example, begins serenely enough but soon builds into a dark and ominous sound, that brings to mind the gathering of huge, black thunderhead clouds suddenly erupting in a storm of blackened fury.  My favourite track of the three is the middle one, Pearl Snake, which combines the band's sludgey doom with mystical eastern sounds, evoking the ritual chanting of some long-forgotten Indian death cult. I am always a bit of a sucker for eastern folk sounds being used on metal records and Hexer do make excellent use of the eastern theme here. Album closer, Black Lava Flow, is a throbbing, pulsing slab of sludginess with some black metal hints that really brings to mind the flowing of dark magma from deep in the bowels of some hellish underground volcano. It culminates in a great psychedelic section, complete with analogue keyboards, that feels organic and natural and not at all like it's forced into the song in an attempt to do something unexpected, but seems entirely the way the track should complete it's journey.

I think on this debut Hexer come across as aiming for a sound similar to Ufomammut but with less of a stoner influence and more sludgey, with even a hint of a black metal flavour. Oh, and did I mention that it is heavy as fuck?! Personally I love the thick, crawling riffs and the pounding rhythms that combine to produce an atmosphere dripping with naturalistic and mystical significance and if there is any justice in the world then these guys will become held in much greater esteem in future.

5/5

My suggestions for July Ben:

Dauþuz - "Schwarzes Wasser" (from "MONVMENTVM", 2019)

The Great Old Ones - "Visions of R'lyeh" (from "Al Azif", 2012)

Ovnev - "Oxygenation" (from "Transpiration", 2020)

For July please Sonny:

Warning - "Footprints" (from "Watching From A Distance", 2006)

Windhand - "Halcyon" (from "Eternal Return", 2018)

Top choices, Vinny! Very glad to include them.

I will go with the Tyrant's Reign ep, thanks.

Over to you Vinny.

I will go with the Nordjevel album.

OK Vinny, you're up next.

I am familiar with Acid Bath's Paegan Terrorism Tactics (although I am not as big a fan as some) but I have never listened to When the Kite String Pops, so I will take Daniel's advice and go with that.

Over to you, Vinny.

June 2023

1. Obelyskkh - "Aquaveil" (from "The Ultimate Grace of God", 2023)

2. Condenados - "Tierra de cementerio" (from "El camino de la serpiente", 2023)

3. Ningen Isu - "りんごの泪" (from "人間失格 (Ningen shikkaku)", 1990) [submitted by Morpheus]

4. Gore - "USA Is Calling" (from "Hart Gore", 1986)

5. Lake of Tears - "Come Night I Reign" (from "Forever Autumn", 1999) [submitted by Daniel]

6. Konvent - "Sand Is King" (from "Call Down the Sun", 2022) [submitted by Vinny]

7. Evoken - "The Mournful Refusal" (from "Antithesis of Light", 2005) [submitted by Ben]

8. Theatre of Tragedy - "Aoede" (from "Aegis", 1998) [submitted by Daniel]

9. The River - "Broken Window" (from "Drawing Down the Sun", 2006) [submitted by Sonny]

10. Tiamat - "Alteration x 10" (from "A Deeper Kind Of Slumber", 1997) [submitted by Daniel]

11. Encoffination - "The Keys of Hell and Death" (from "We Proclaim Your Death O' Lord", 2019)

12. Coffinworm - "Of Eating Disorders & Restraining Orders" (from "IV.I.XIII", 2014) [submitted by Daniel]

13. Hell - "Victus" (from "Hell", 2017) [submitted by Vinny]

14. Dolorian - "Raja Naga – Rising" (from, Voidwards, 2006) [submitted by Ben]

15. Leechfeast - "Bells of Fire" (from, "Leechfeast / Nightfucker Split EP", 2023) [submitted by Sonny]

Hi Ben, could you please add Austrian crusty speed metallers Ewig Frost.

Could you add Cincinnati funeral doom outfit Opium Doom Cult please Ben.

Hi Ben, my suggestions for June:

Árstíðir Lifsins - "Ek sá halr at Hóars veðri hǫsvan serk Hrísgrísnis bar" from "Saga á tveim tungum II: Eigi fjǫll né firðir" (2020)

Emperor - "Thus Spake the Nightspirit" from "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk" (1997)

Hi Sonny... you've selected the Árstíðir Lifsins track previously. I'd include it again, but it is a near 18 minute epic, so I've selected another popular track off the album. If you'd prefer to replace with something else, let me know. Cheers.

Ah, OK, that's fine. Sorry. 

Atheist - Unquestionable Presence (1991)

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

Rippikoulu - "Musta seremonia" demo (1993)

I hadn't revisited this cult classic of a mid-90's demo tape in many years but Ben recently asked me for my opinion on it & I noticed that I hadn't rated it on Metal Academy yet so I felt it was about time I gave it another sitting. The six tracks included run for just over half an hour which is a good length for this kind of release &, while the production may be really raw, it  loses none of it's effectiveness. In fact, I feel that the crushing down-tuned riffage & depressive atmospherics are only enhanced by it which is the sign of a true underground gem. I really love the deep death growls too as they're wonderfully monstrous but don't sound generic in the slightest.

Musically, Rippikoulu's sound is a tale of two cities. On the one hand you have the dark, suffocating doom/death of bands like Spectral Voice, Winter & diSEMBOWELMENT, only it's been combined with the grimy, mid-paced, tremolo-picked conventional death metal of early Bolt Thrower & the outcome is nothing short of splendid. Perhaps the lack of production can make a lot of the material sound a touch samey but it's only a short release & the couple of more atmospheric highlights that close out the demo certainly stand out, particularly the spectacular "Pimeys yllä Jumalan maan" which about as good as doom/death gets. If I'm being picky I'd say that the faster parts are a little less effective than the doomier sections but this is a quality effort from a band that clearly showed a lot of unfulfilled potential.

4/5

A five-star rating from me for this one, Daniel. I have a copy of the 2010 re-issue on CD and it gets plenty of spin-time in the Sonny household.

Khanate - To Be Cruel (2023)

Released 19th May 2023 on Sacred Bones

To Be Cruel is only Khanate's fourth album in the 23 years since their formation and it has been fourteen years since previous release, Clean Hands Go Foul. To be fair, the band had originally split in 2006 with little prospect of reforming, it appeared, and the main man behind Khanate is none other than Stephen O'Malley, so he has been otherwise occupied with Sunn O))) and his zillion other projects for the last two or three decades. The other members of Khanate are drummer Tim Wyskida and bassist James Plotkin who, along with Runhild Gammelsæter were both members of legendary, one album only, drone metal outfit Khlyst and vocalist Alan Dubin who, along with Plotkin was in New Jersey grindcore/industrial legends O.L.D. and is more recently the voice behind drone/noise outfit Gnaw. So with a pedigree like that, don't go into To Be Cruel with expectations of hearing anything even remotely melodic.

The album consists of three tracks, all clocking in at around the twenty-minute mark and a degree of patience will serve you well as you tackle the ensuing hour and one minute of hulking insanity. In fact, even with the patience of the Dalai Lama, the majority probably wouldn't get very far with To Be Cruel because this is not music for everyone. It is grindingly slow, exceedingly sparse, hulkingly menacing and lacking any kind of melody or hooks for the uninitiated to hang on to. O'Malley's massive, hulking guitar chords, bolstered by Plotkin's glacially-paced, seismic bass and Wyskida's sparse drum hits and crashing percussion set the scene with an atmosphere of terrifying menace, like a slow-motion, one-take camera shot of a walkthrough of a serial killer's homestead, as dread builds against the appearance of the killer himself. And when he appears, in the guise of Alan Dubin's genuinely disturbing vocals, you know you have experienced true fear. Dubin's vocal performance sounds truly unhinged and if you thought Edgy from Burning Witch sounded scarily deranged, then Dubin is about to take you even further away from any grasp on sanity, whether he is screaming at the top of his lungs in frustrated defiance or cajoling with gentle whispers, you feel you are in the presence of a mind that is warped beyond any recognition of reality. The excessive distortion, those percussive crashes and Dubin's howling of frustrated agony all combine to produce one of the grimiest and scariest sounds on a drone album. Mental pictures of delapidated barns full of rusted scythes and rotting pig carcasses insert themselves in your brain unheeded as you seem to be subjected to the workings of Leatherface's inner monologue.

I am a massive fan of Khanate's debut album, but they may even have bettered it this time around. I don't know if working on it during the pandemic in '20/'21 added an extra aura of despair and hopelessness to the recording process, but whatever mysterious alchemical formula they happened upon seems to have been a lightning in a bottle event that has very possibly produced the last word in extreme doom metal albums. Do not listen to To Be Cruel in the dark if you wish to preserve your sanity. Makes Texas Chainsaw seem like a Disney movie and Lovecraft like a bedtime story.

5/5

Labyrinthus Stellarum - "Tales of the Void" (2023)

Labyrinthus Stellarum are a Ukrainian three-piece from Odessa in Ukraine, who must be commended for even being able to get an album out considering the challenges they must currently be facing. They were founded by vocalist and keyboard player, Alexander Andronati along with guitarists Alexander Kostetskyi and Misha Andronati (who is a mere fifteen years old) and Tales of the Void is their debut release. I was tempted to check Labyrinthus Stellarum out after being quite struck by their track Void Dwellers which is actually the opener from Tales of the Void when it was featured in May's Academy playlist for the North.

The trio play a combination of atmospheric black metal and dungeon synth with a space theme which, admittedly, isn't the most original theme for an atmo-black outfit, but it is carried off with such beautiful arrangements that lack of originality is never an issue that leaps to mind. They don't just intersperse their black metal with some synth-laden interludes, although that does occur, they are also unafraid to incorporate the synths into the black metal sections which seems to produce a really nice, mellowing effect and actually makes Tales of the Void an incredibly relaxing album to listen to. They may have taken influence from the likes of Darkspace, particularly thematically, but their style of black metal is more laid back than Wroth's often desperate-sounding earnestness. I know I have probably made the album sound more blackgaze-y than it is, but I think fans of Deafheaven and Alcest may enjoy what these Ukrainians are delivering. The actual black metal content of Tales of the Void sounds to me more similar to Saor than to Paysage d'Hiver and when that is combined with the gently soaring synth work then it assumes a quite epic visage that is well-suited to nature-themed BM. I don't think it encapsulates the atmosphere of space as well as the top cosmic BM practitioners like Mare Cognitum and Darkspace as it feels a little too warm and earthy and doesn't really evoke the frigidity of cosmic majesty as effectively as the true masters. The synths do sometimes offer a weird, space-y dimension, such as those present on the track Cosmic Winds, but again, for me, they just as often evoke earthbound phenomena like rain or waterfalls. Of course this is my interpretation of what I am hearing and others may disagree, but I feel cosmic BM should be a little more frigid-sounding than this.

That said, this is still an exceedingly promising debut from what appears to be a young and inexperienced trio of musicians. The tracks are very well put together, the guitars are layered to wonderful effect and the synths add a nice additional dimension. Alexander Andronati has a decent shrieking vocal delivery, although his voice is buried in the mix occasionally, especially when the synths are present as they do tend to dominate. I can see this appealing to those who may not be regular black metal fans, as well as the more seasoned atmo-black veterans. No doubt the trve will take against it, but they do with anything that even hints at any production values, so there's nothing new there. A band well worth keeping an eye on as they do seem to have cracked one of the key elements of any type of music, which is the songwriting.

Favourite track: "Cosmic Winds"

3.5/5

Epheles - "L'ombre de la croix" (2001)

Epheles were formed in 1997 by french brothers Malphas and Nephtys (possibly not their real names!) L'ombre de la croix is a four track mini album that marked the band's debut release, being released in May of 2001. It does suffer from some production issues and sounds like a reasonable quality demo, but as this is black metal we are talking about that is by no means an insurmountable hurdle. This is viciously feral-sounding black metal that is also incredibly atmospheric, despite some of the atmosphere being lost in the production. Along with the blasting and Nephtys' keening, shrieking vocals there is a liberal use of keyboard layering, ambient sections and slower riffing parts which makes the tracks feel quite narrative. Opener Winds of Despair, for example, tells the tale of the narrator's bleak existence since the death of his beloved, with lyrics that My Dying Bride would be proud of and sorrowful ambient parts that are usurped by rabid, raving shrieks and intense blasting as if his sorrow is unable to be contained.

Epheles songwriting is actually quite strong, especially the first couple of tracks which are the longest at nine and fourteen minutes and displays a strong sense of atmosphere and variety, whilst maintaining the fundamental essence of evilness that is the basis of black metal. Look, if you like your metal to be crystal clear and well-produced then you are best looking elsewhere, but if you thrive on the lo-fi gloriousness that really good black metal can possess then I think you may be pleasantly surprised by L'ombre de la croix.

4/5

P.S. They actually have a brand new album out which I will have to check out soon.

Blasted the playlist whilst out on an extended morning dog walk and enjoyed it immensely... well at least three quarters of it. I must admit that, much like last month as it seemed to end with more brutal death metal, it kind of lost me a bit. The Drumcorps track intrigued me as it almost sounded like a kind of cyber-sludge - I don't think I could listen to a whole album of it, but as a single track on a playlist it stood out as an interesting anachronism. I will also have to check Misery Index out - a band whose name I have seen around for what seems like ever, but never listened to before.

I'm thinking I've got a bit of an easy gig with the Fallen playlist as 15 or 16 tracks usually covers the two hours but Daniel (and Vinny on the Pit playlist) have to come up with twice that number of tracks to fill two hours - well done lads for your admirable perseverance.

Death - "Human" (1991)

If the only thing I took away from my deep dive into the early years of death metal was my re-evaluation of Death and elevation of Chuck Schuldiner to the level of metal god, then it would have been a worthwhile exercise. Being a death metal numpty at the outset I had, even here on the forum pages of Metal Academy no less, expressed scepticism that Death were all that. Approaching the band's releases chronologically and in temporal context revealed that yes, indeed, they were all that and Chuck Schuldiner may well have been the most evolutionary of all metal songwriters. A question that begs some contemplation is where would metal be now if Chuck had lived a longer life, what the hell would he be playing nowadays and is there anything even remotely like it in existence? I think it is fair to say that he was indeed the very rare case of a true musical visionary.

Where Death excelled is that although they constantly changed, literally from album to album, they didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and always gave their existing fanbase a way into their new material by a process of evolution of their sound rather than a complete overhaul. There may never be a better example of a metal songwriter's evolution than Death's seven albums. It is almost as if with each release it is possible to trace the individual steps of Death's metamorphosis.

For Death's fourth album, Human, out went the rhythm section of bassist Terry Butler and the much-maligned drummer Bill Andrews (after a legal battle over the pair's use of the Death name on a European tour) and surprisingly, considering how big an impact he had on Spritual Healing, out too went guitarist James Murphy. Previously Chuck had written material with other members, but for Human he wrote all the tracks in isolation and, possibly realising he needed band members with the chops to do his new material justice, in came exceedingly capable musicians in Sadus bassist, Steve Di Giorgio, and Cynic members, drummer Sean Reinert and guitarist Paul Masvidal. This was an inspired move, as there is a greater emphasis on technicality on Human that is pulled off brilliantly by the four members.

The sound on Human has a greater clarity than previous Death albums and allows the multifarious riffs and more complex rhythms distinction in the mix that may have been lacking in the earlier albums' muddier production. Both Reinert and Di Giorgio's amazing contributions can be heard distinctly and their technical prowess in both maintaining the rhythms and adding interesting work of their own to the shifting soundscapes is obvious for all to hear. Paul Masvidal's lead work is excellent and he takes a jazzier kind of approach to his soloing than Murphy's more traditional heavy metal approach, and this increasing technicality and diversity seems to be one of the major reasons for his recruitment into Death's lineup. The solo halfway through Secret Face, for example, brings a spanish, almost flamenco-like flavour to the track which, especially in 1991, seems like an impossibility in death metal, but is pulled off here with aplomb.

Chuck Schuldiner had always written great riffs, but on Human they became more complex, seemingly evolving and mutating as each track progresses, like some kind of virus. Despite this increasing complexity and technicality Human still has some incredibly powerful death metal riffing - the main riff of Lack of Comprehension is an absolute killer that is as muscular as anything you could have heard at the time. Human is comprised of truly memorable tracks that stick in the mind well after the silver disc stops spinning and this is a huge plus for me as I often find a lot of technical metal is so focussed on it's own complexities that listenability is sacrificed at the altar of technicality for technicality's sake. Just when you think you have the measure of Human, though, they toss in instrumental Cosmic Sea, which is an insane piece of work that comes at you with pretty much everything Chuck could muster, atmospheric keyboards, soaring solos, weird, otherworldly dissonance and another brutally heavy riff all combine for one of the most interesting metal instrumental tracks you may ever hear. Then on top of Human's sublime instrumentation there are the vocals. Chuck Schuldiner is a seminal death metal vocalist and I think the main thing that makes his vocals so great is that they sound equally as horrified as they are horrifying, as if even he himself cannot bear the evil tidings he brings.

At 33 minutes the album is Death's shortest, but there is just so much to digest within it's slight runtime that it is hard to believe only half-an-hour has passed come album's end. This is as rigorous a workout as you could reasonably have expected back in 1991 and most bands would fail to get even close to producing a half hour of metal as genuinely awe-inspiring as Human.

5/5

I'm going to throw Blut Aus Nord into this conversation. Sure, they have a couple of albums that weren't that well received in the late 2000s, but the vast majority of their 14 full length albums are superb. They're also quite experimental with their sound, making their consistency extra impressive.

Good shout Ben. 

A couple other bands fitting this category that come to my mind include Annihilator and Kamelot

You're on your own with the Annihilator call Andi. I'd actually go the complete other direction with them to be honest.

Yeah, I'm With Daniel on this one Andi. Personally I find Annihilator unlistenable.

Enslaved are a great band and one of my personal favourites. To produce such a consistently strong run of releases over such a long period of time without putting hardly a foot wrong is an impressive feat.

Maybe controversially I would suggest Opeth as I really like their prog rock stuff as well as the metal they are better known for. Another impressive band, I think, is Monolithe who have also been ridiculously consistent over their nine albums and have evolved from a death doom outfit into a more prog metal, albeit still death doom-based, band.

They haven't changed a huge amount over the years, but Esoteric have been exceptionally consistent (if you are a funeral doom freak anyway).

So for once I have listened to and reviewed all nine of this month's clan features and here is my ranking of those nine releases in descending order:

THE INFINITE: Amorphis - "Under the Red Cloud" (2015) 4.5/5

THE FALLEN: Black Cobra - "Invernal" (2011) 4/5

THE HORDE: Nails - Abandon All Life (2013) 4/5

THE SPHERE: Fear Factory - "Soul of a New Machine" (1992) 3.5/5

THE REVOLUTION: Gaza - "He Is Never Coming Back" (2009) 3.5/5

THE PIT: Agent Steel - "Mad Locust Rising" (1986) 3/5

THE NORTH - Hoplites - "Τρωθησομένη" (2023) 3/5

THE GUARDIANS: Persuader - "When Eden Burns" (2006) 3/5

THE GATEWAY: Klone - "Meanwhile" (2023) 2.5/5

I didn't truly dislike any of this month's features, although most of them did have niggling issues that prevented better scores from me.

Anyway, Andy takes the "Feature of the Month" award from me for May (who'd a thunk it?) Thanks Andy...

A nasty little burst of abrasive and aggressive grindcore that will give your ear'oles a good pummelling with most of it's ten tracks. It isn't exactly relentless, however as the two longest tracks are delivered at a more considered pace, but it is generally speaking an exercise in nothing less than aural violence. There is blasting aplenty and drummer Taylor Young is given a pretty intense workout, but luckily he seems more than up to the task. The guitar tone is brilliant, aided I believe by Kurt Ballou of Converge who was producer on "Abandon All Life", and maintains a terrific clarity despite it's thick crunchy sound.

The two slower tracks, that is " Wide Open Wound" and closer "Suum Cuique" are, unsurprisingly I suppose, the ones that appeal to me most, as they deliver more on the atmosphere front with looming, menacing riffs rather than just trying to blow your balls off! I guess grindcore records have to be taken as an overall package and the adrenaline-fuelling effect of the majority of the genre's output is the main thing as most of the songs display only minor differences in a lot of cases, and that is the case with some of the faster material here, but those slower tracks do give the listener a foothold into the tracklisting and "Suum Cuique" is actually a very effective, slower and brooding end to the record.

Where it loses marks for me, in what has become a bit of a theme with this month's features, is the vocal department. I prefer grindcore with a vocalist whose vocals are a bit more OSDM sounding like Barney Greenway or Terrorizer's Oscar Garcia and although Todd Jones doesn't actually hit "shouty toddler" level, he still sounds a bit metalcore-ish for my taste. The vocals aren't bad enough to be a deal breaker, though, and on the whole I did enjoy this a lot, it's variation in pacing and generally excellent instrumentation being huge plusses.

4/5