Sonny's Forum Replies

Nice review Daniel. It has occured to me that this is the only Archgoat release I haven't rated, so I will have to check it out soon. Personally I think Archgoat are a very consistent and classy act in the world of War Metal.

I will have to post a new top ten too, because the last one was two years ago, before I had heard Teitanblood's Death. I'd better check out that Infernal Coil album first, though.

So, my first time checking out the Horde playlist as a bona fide member of the clan. Top discoveries for me this month were Horrendous and the unpronouncable Sanguisugabogg with their charmingly-titled Testicular Rot. Others that caught my ear were 200 Stab Wounds, Splatterhouse and Torture Rack.

Immolation, Bloodbath, Tzompantli, Atheist and Teitanblood are familiar already and were represented by great tracks.

I didn't really care for Fleshvessel, Geryon, The HIRS Collective, Waking The Cadaver and Aborted - but I still have much to learn!

All in all, great fun and an enjoyable listen.

At the risk of showing my ignorance, what is a discord?

Quoted Sonny

Discord is a social app where you can create a Server and invite people to it. You can then craft the server to your liking with text channels where people can send messages, or create voice channels that people can join and talk. It's highly customizable since you can have bots do automated things or give people certain roles that allows/disallows them to do things that you specify. With how MA is currently set up, it'd basically be an alternate version of what we already have here if set up. Separate text channels for each clan, running announcement channels that would alert everyone of the new Features of the month. It's just more immediate than forums, since people use it to chat in real time like text messaging. 

Just to chime in since I'm technically a regular, sites like Metal Academy take a tremendous amount of effort compared to normal social media sites. And honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way since it makes the content on here more interesting and based less on engagement farming for the sake of a number going up. Algorithms and all that junk. 

But again, it takes effort. Right now my schedule and brain capacity between work, studying, and the rest of my life doesn't allow me to get the creative review juices flowing. As I'm sure you've seen from my lack of reviews or engagement on a lot of monthly things. Hopefully this'll turn around eventually but the framework of the site does ask for a lot out of people. Which again, is fine.

Ah, thanks for the explanation Xephyr.

Might I be bold enough to ask the question, if you wish the site to have broader appeal, then are the longer-time members like myself who have been happy with how the site functions and how we can interact with it for several years now, really the ones to ask about changing it? There are obviously many people who register and then disappear, some even starting off like they might hang around, but they don't. Have they been contacted to enquire as to why they didn't ultimately think it was for them?

Does anybody feel that the lack of resources such as tracklists, labels etc. for the releases has a negative effect?

At the risk of showing my ignorance, what is a discord?

For myself, depending in the subject, I would possibly be interested in some articles, for example Daniel, I would really like to hear about some of your experiences as an insider in the early Aussie death metal scene, but interviews with musicians, like interviews with actors, I find tend to be self-aggrandising and excuses for promoting whatever their latest project is and so I very rarely read interviews.

I admit that the site has its pros, but as long as it's just the few of us, there really isn't much activity going on as most of us don't post often.  I could be wrong on this, but doesn't more people visiting generate more revenue for the creators to put towards the site?

I don't think the site is monetised in any way, Rex, and all the costs have been borne by Ben and Daniel alone.

Hey Vinny. My submissions for October are:

Demoniac - "Granada" (from "Nube negra", 2023)

Destruction - "Reject Emotions" (from "Mad Butcher" EP, 1987)

Nuclear Assault - "Cross of Iron" (from "The Plague" EP, 1987)

*Opprobrium - "Curse of the Damned Cities" (from "Beyond the Unknown", 1990)

*The band were called Incubus when it was released, but it is on Spotify as Opprobrium)

Hi Ben, could you add the new Demoniac album, Nube Negra, please.

I must admit that I have considered attempting other clan challenges just for the fun of it and I did make an aborted attempt on one of the Guardians challenges (which I may yet revive). Apart from anything else, they are a good way to get into less familiar genres as they tend to include releases that are important to the genre as well as being of a high quality. I found the Death Metal challenge to be extremely rewarding and I learnt quite a bit about the genre whilst doing it. I think there is sufficient satisfaction in completing one for it's own sake. 

I seem to remember an early conversation when a merit system was dismissed as being distracting and causing a tendency amongst some people to "mine" rewards.

Distracting how?

Because the point of the site is not to accumulate rewards that create a "hierarchy" as is rife on metal archives.

I mentioned that the hierarchy wouldn't actually mean anything but just be for fun.

It is certainly something you can bring up with Daniel and Ben, Rex. I don't care either way personally, I only brought it up to illustrate that a conversation had already been had.

I must admit that I have considered attempting other clan challenges just for the fun of it and I did make an aborted attempt on one of the Guardians challenges (which I may yet revive). Apart from anything else, they are a good way to get into less familiar genres as they tend to include releases that are important to the genre as well as being of a high quality. I found the Death Metal challenge to be extremely rewarding and I learnt quite a bit about the genre whilst doing it. I think there is sufficient satisfaction in completing one for it's own sake. 

I seem to remember an early conversation when a merit system was dismissed as being distracting and causing a tendency amongst some people to "mine" rewards.

Distracting how?

Because the point of the site is not to accumulate rewards that create a "hierarchy" as is rife on metal archives.

I must admit that I have considered attempting other clan challenges just for the fun of it and I did make an aborted attempt on one of the Guardians challenges (which I may yet revive). Apart from anything else, they are a good way to get into less familiar genres as they tend to include releases that are important to the genre as well as being of a high quality. I found the Death Metal challenge to be extremely rewarding and I learnt quite a bit about the genre whilst doing it. I think there is sufficient satisfaction in completing one for it's own sake. 

I seem to remember an early conversation when a merit system was dismissed as being distracting and causing a tendency amongst some people to "mine" rewards.

I have just noticed that the Atmospheric Sludge challenge is under the Infinite yet the bands are also under the Fallen, even though there is no genre on which the Fallen members can vote. Do these releases need to be removed from the Fallen altogether and does atmospheric sludge need to be uncoupled from sludge metal?

It's something I've always wanted to do. Unfortunately it would require completely rebuilding the search function, so comes at more cost than I can currently manage. I'll do it one day, but in the meantime, Daniel's solution works well enough. I'd also like to search for releases that ONLY have a particular genre or subgenre.

That's fair comment Ben. With an acceptable work around there is really no need to run to excessive expense.

Yeah, that's something that we've had on our radar for a while Sonny. I'm not sure how hard or costly it would be to implement (Ben might) but you can kinda work around it by searching on releases with a Black Metal genre that are also in The Horde for example.

Ah yes, good idea. I hadn't thought of that.

Edit: I have just tried it for black metal releases that are in The Fallen and it has given me exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Daniel.

Long and oftimes arduous has the path been, but finally I stand upon the threshold of the Halls of the Deathly and gaze upon it's wonders as it commences it's secrets to reveal.

Now that I've completed the Death Metal - the 1st Decade challenge, I thought I would rank the list:

1. Death - Human (1991)

2. Autopsy - Mental Funeral (1991)

3. Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness (1989)

4. Possessed - Seven Churches (1985)

5. Obituary - Cause of Death (1990)

6. Demilich - Nespithe (1993)

7. Atheist - Unquestionable Presence (1991)

8. Incantation - Onward to Golgotha (1992)

9. Carcass - Necroticism-Descanting the Insalubrious (1991)

10. Immolation - Dawn of Possession (1991)

11. Pestilence - Consuming Impulse (1989)

12. Brutality - Screams of Anguish (1993)

13. Gorguts - The Erosion of Sanity (1993)

14. Amorphis - Tales From the Thousand Lakes (1994)

15. Deicide - Deicide (1990)

16. Bolt Thrower - The IVth Crusade (1992)

17. Asphyx - Last One on Earth (1992)

18. Necrophobic - The Nocturnal Silence (1993)

19. Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten (1991)

20. Nocturnus - The Key (1990)

21. Dark Tranquillity - The Gallery (1995)

22. Demigod - Slumber of Sullen Eyes (1992)

23. At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul (1995)

24. Entombed - Left Hand Path (1990)

25. Dismember - Like an Ever Flowing Stream (1991)

Thanks guys.

Ben / Daniel, I believe I have now completed the Death Metal - The 1st Decade clan challenge and as such I would like to seek admission into the hallowed halls of the Horde clan. It has taken a mere four years, but I believe I now have earned that fourth badge!!

So now that I have (finally) completed the Death Metal the 1st Decade clan challenge, I think I will put this thread to bed now. I have thoroughly enjoyed this time travel back to the late 80s / early 90s via the early releases of death metal and have found some absolute corkers to keep me going for many a year. As a bit of a death metal skeptic going in, it just goes to show that you can teach an old dog new tricks! I have discovered plenty of new favourites and believe I now have a much better understanding of a genre I had merely scratched the surface of before. This is not the end of my death metal exploration, not by a long shot, but I don't need this thread to log it any more and so will bring it to a close now. Thanks for indulging me and for joining me for the ride...

Dark Tranquillity - The Gallery (1995)

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

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

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

4/5

At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul (1995)

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

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

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

3.5/5

I have been reacquainting myself with  Amorphis' Tales From the Thousand Lakes over the last couple of days and during the course of that I noticed how many of my favourite albums were released that year, so I thought I'd do a quick top 10.

Sonny's Top Ten Releases of 1994:

1. Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse

2. Mayhem - De mysteriis dom Sathanas

3. Enslaved - Vikingligr veldi

4. Darkthrone - Transilvanian Hunger

5. Cianide - A Descent Into Hell

6. Burzum - Hvis lyset tar oss

7. Fimbulwinter - Servants of Sorcery

8. Thergothon - Stream From the Heavens

9. Gorement - The Ending Quest

10. Amorphis - Tales From the Thousand Lakes

Nothing rates less than a 9/10 for me on this list.

Amorphis - Tales From the Thousand Lakes (1994)I am finally on a bit more familiar territory with an album I have known for quite a while. Tales From the Thousand Lakes is actually one of the first albums I got into when, after a hiatus of several years, I ventured back into metal in the late nineties and it was one of those I got a dodgy copy of using that new-fangled Napster thingy, so beloved by Lars Ulrich & co. Over the years, I had actually begun to doubt whether this was as good as I thought it was back then, or if it was failing to age well, but revisiting it now has re-ignited my love of it and confirmed that it has stood the test of time and still maintains it's reputation as a one-of-a-kind classic.

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

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

4.5/5

I listened to Snowland this evening whilst taking Koko for her last walk of the day. I have to use Spotify for my mobile listening so I could only find the MMXII re-recorded version. I still found it to be very much up my street and I'm itching to hear the rawer, original version. Is it on YouTube or Bandcamp do you know Vinny?

It is on both YouTube and Bandcamp Sonny, but I listened to it on Bandcamp.

Nice one. I'll head on over and grab a copy from BC.

The last couple of full-lengths from Québec depressive/atmospheric black metal duo Gris are worth checking out. 2007's "Il était une forêt..." is arguably Canada's most widely celebrated black metal release however I prefer their 2013 double album "À l'âme enflammée, l'âme constellée..." to tell you the truth.

I'd second Il était une forêt... I found it to be one of the most affecting DSBM releases I have heard.

I listened to Snowland this evening whilst taking Koko for her last walk of the day. I have to use Spotify for my mobile listening so I could only find the MMXII re-recorded version. I still found it to be very much up my street and I'm itching to hear the rawer, original version. Is it on YouTube or Bandcamp do you know Vinny?

I would definitely recommend atmospheric black metal Quebecois separatists, Forteresse, Vinny. Particularly their 2016 album, Thèmes pour la rébellion.

Another interesting underground act is the black/doom band Alkymist and a particular favourite of mine is Toronto's Sortilegia.

... Oh, and Spectral Wound.

Gorguts - Erosion of Sanity (1993)

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

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

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

4.5/5

September 2023

1. Tzompantli - "Yaotiacahuanetzli" (from "Tlazcaltiliztli", 2022) [submitted by Daniel]

2. The Body - "The City is Shelled" (from "I've Seen All I Need to See", 2021) [submitted by Sonny]

3. Crowbar - "The Lasting Dose" (from "Sonic Excess In Its Purest Form", 2001) [submitted by Vinny]

4. Baroness - "Desperation Burns" (from "Purple", 2015)

5. Type O Negative - "White Slavery" (from "World Coming Down", 1999) [submitted by Ben]

6. Dystopia - "Ignorance of Pride" (from "Human = Garbage EP", 1994)

7. Smoulder - "Dragonslayer's Doom" (from "Violent Creed of Vengeance", 2023) [submitted by Sonny]

8. Paradise Lost - "Victim of the Past" (from "The Plague Within", 2015)

9. The Abbey - "Old Ones" (from "Word of Sin", 2023)

10. My Dying Bride - "And My Fury Stands Ready" (from "Songs Of Darkness, Words Of Light", 2004) [submitted by Daniel]

11. Toke - "Within the Sinister Void" (from "(Orange)", 2017) [submitted by Vinny]

12. Cult of Luna - "The Silent Man" (from "A Dawn To Fear", 2019)

13. Shape of Despair - "Curse Life" (from "Illusion's Play", 2004) [submitted by Ben]

14. Acid Mammoth - "Tree of Woe" (from "Under Acid Hoof", 2020) [submitted by Vinny]

15. Sunn O))) - "Troubled Air" (from "Life Metal", 2019)

16. Decomposed - "Inscriptions" (from "Hope Finally Died...", 1993) [submitted by Ben]

As you probably know by now, I have lately been using this thread to document my tackling of The Horde's Death Metal the First Decade clan challenge, going through the list chronologically. I have now got to Gorguts' second album, The Erosion of Sanity. It seems, from what I have seen, that this is considered to be a transitional album for the band, so in the interest of due diligence I thought I would check out the albums released either side of it. Here's a few thoughts:

Gorguts - Considered Dead (1991)

The Canadians released their debut LP in 1991 and it seems obvious to me that they were heavily influenced by Chuck Schuldiner and Death, this sounding very much like the first couple of Death releases, Luc Lemay's vocals in particular seem very reminiscent of Chuck's style. It's not a bad album at all, it is what may disparagingly be called by some, a solid slab of early nineties' death metal that sounds very typical of the times. It doesn't sit within the upper tier for me, alongside Altars of Madness, Mental Funeral, Scream Bloody Gore or even Deicide's debut, but it is entertaining enough and I would definitely listen to it again.

Which brings me to:

Gorguts - Obscura (1998)

I am reluctant to go into it too deeply, but I guess it's cards on the table time. I have a "condition" whereby I become overwhelmed by excessive external sensory stimuli, particularly sounds, which means I am exceedingly uncomfortable in situations with a lot of disparate aural inputs such as crowds. This probably explains why I favour the more monolithic genres like doom, especially funeral doom, and drone and why more complex music like jazz or technical and avant-garde metal rub me up the wrong way. As a consequence of this, an album like Obscura is like a mild form of torture to my overtaxed brain. This sounds to me like a band where all the members are displaying their technical adroitness by all playing a different song at the same time and I'm sorry, but I just can't take it. This is the type of record where I have to genuinely say, "this is not for me". I can't apologise for it and I wish it was otherwise, so I too could revel in it's complexities, but it is what it is. I have only got thtrough it once by listening to no more than a couple of tracks at a time, I find it so genuinely uncomfortable to listen to.

I only bring this up to explain why I dislike this sort of complex, technical and dissonant stuff, it's not to be edgy or counter to the consensus, it is just problematic for me. I won't insult everyone's intelligence by rating it, as I can't listen to it objectively and subjectively it would have to be a 0.5/5 for me, but we all know that is just ridiculous. Thanks for listening - I really don't wish to sound like an asshole, so I hope you understand.

I'll post a review of The Erosion of Sanity when i have had a little bit longer with it.

I am so glad I undertook this journey back to the early days of death metal as I have found I now have a much greater appreciation of it's allure. I have found some absolute gems and approaching it this way has been almost like experiencing the scene in real time. I have often felt a pang of jealousy of people who are hearing albums like Master of Puppets and Reign in Blood for the first time, remembering how much they blew me away when I first heard them myself, but now I have been lucky enough to have a similar experience with many of death metal's true classics and have been loving it. Anyway, a brilliant double-header today, starting with:

Brutality - Screams of Anguish (1993)

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

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

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

4.5/5

Demilich - Nespithe (1993)

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

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

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

 5/5, Hell yeah!!

Necrophobic - The Nocturnal Silence (1993)

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

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

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

A very solid upper 4/5 from me.

Blood Ceremony - The Old Ways Remain (2023)

It has been fully seven years since Blood Ceremony's previous album, Lord of Misrule, was released back in March of 2016. That release showed them moving away from their heavier, doomy sound, towards a more psychedelic, style that was a little lighter in tone than their previous material, whilst still maintaining a connection for their original fanbase, amongst which I count myself. The Old Ways Remain finds the Canadians stepping even further away from their doom metal side and completely embracing a lighter, bouncier and, dare I say, poppier sound. Having been a huge fan of the band since their earliest days, after the very first listen I was exceedingly disappointed by TOWR and it's direction. Subsequent listens have seen me walk back my opinion a little, but I have still got to say upfront that this is probably my least favourite Blood Ceremony release.  Now don't misunderstand, there is still a fair bit I enjoyed here, but this is Blood Ceremony and my expectations for one of my favourite bands is much higher than for many others.

Not everything is doom and gloom however, in particular the contributions from a couple of guests are definitely worth mentioning. Joseph Shabason's saxophone on third track, Eugenie, provides one of the album's highlights and Laura Bates of ambient folk doom band Völur provides fiddle on the album's best track, The Bonfires at Belloc Coombe and the penultimate Mossy Woods, that gives both tracks a folksy, Appalachian feel. Alia O'Brien dominates proceedings though, with her distinctive vocals and her flute providing most of the soloing, she towers over Blood Ceremony in a similar way that Ian Anderson does in Jethro Tull and is the main point of focus for the band. On the downside there are a couple of absolute duds, which is something I thought I would never say about a Blood Ceremony track, but Powers of Darkness is a bit of a mess and Hecate is majorly dull and overtly poppy-sounding.

Ultimately I would have to say that The Old Ways Remain is a bit of a letdown for me personally and whilst still retaining a fair bit of Blood Ceremony's basic DNA, the band seem to be pursuing a more commercial direction which is also as likely to alienate long-term fans of the band.

3.5/5

FVNERALS - Let the Earth Be Silent (2023)

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

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

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

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

4.5/5

Smoulder - Violent Creed of Vengeance (2023)

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

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

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

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

4/5

I completely agree that as far as rating a release goes, then the qualiity of what is in front of you is all that should be of concern. What I was trying to say in my post was merely that whether a release is considered an EP or album is a matter for the band, but this shouldn't influence it's rating as that is subjective and the artist's intention isn't really relevant. If I was rating a 7" single and both sides were brilliant, Bowie's Life on Mars? / The Man Who Sold the World for example, then I have no problem doling out a 5 star rating, so why should an EP with 3 or 4 brilliant tracks (or even one longer one) not also have a similar rating. Never mind the length, feel the quality!

My sympathies go out to you Daniel. I have been made redundant twice during my working life, both times from huge UK companies (British Aerospace & Tesco) restructuring (aka hiring cheaper labour!) Both times it came out of the blue and so I know exactly how you are feeling, like it is some kind of mistake or something and you can't really take it all in or accept it. All I can say is that it is never the end of the world, no matter how it may seem at the moment, and I am positive you will land on your feet and bounce back stronger than ever.

Rightly or wrongly, albums are given much more weight in the rock and metal world and bands are generally judged on the quality of their studio album output. I am not saying that everyone views it this way, but the majority and certainly the "industry" do. As this is undoubtedly the case, I think the artist's view should have primary consideration as it is their work and vision which is being judged. If they feel that, for whatever reason, a release does not completely represent what they wish to convey, then I think they should have the right to designate it as a "minor" release, which is what the term EP has now come to imply. Even the case of Harbinger of Metal, it could be that these were old tracks that the band had been kicking around for years that they wanted the fans to have access to, yet didn't feel that they adequately expressed where the band were artistically at the time. True, to me, it doesn't sound out of place in their discography, but it is their vision, not mine.

Thus accepting that EP is merely a hangover term for a minor release from the heyday of vinyl distribution, it becomes obvious that length is irrelevant and it is all about artistic integrity. If a band wish to say, "this 15 minute release completely represents us as a band, where we are artistically, is important to us and is something upon which we wish to hang our legacy, so is an album", then so be it, who am I to argue.

Ii has been over two years since I last updated my list and I have been putting together a list of my AOTY's in the lists section, so now seems like a suitable time for a revision.

https://metal.academy/lists/single/231

1970: Black Sabbath - Paranoid
1971: Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
1972: Black Sabbath - Vol 4
1973: Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
1974: Pinnacle - Assasin
1975: Black Sabbath - Sabotage
1976: Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny
1977: Motörhead - Motörhead
1978: Judas Priest - Stained Class
1979: Motörhead - Bomber

1980: Angel Witch - Angel Witch
1981: Iron Maiden - Killers
1982: Witchfinder General - Death Penalty
1983: Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind
1984: Metallica - Ride the Lightning
1985: Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion
1986: Slayer - Reign in Blood
1987: Candlemass - Nightfall
1988: Sabbat - History of a Time to Come
1989: Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness

1990: Winter - Into Darkness
1991: Autopsy - Mental Funeral
1992: Darkthrone: A Blaze in the Northern Sky
1993: Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version
1994: Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse
1995: Mütiilation - Vampires of Black Imperial Blood
1996: Scald - Will of the Gods Is Great Power
1997: Skepticism - Lead and Aether
1998: Solstice - New Dark Age
1999: Opeth - Still Life

2000: Immolation - Close to a World Below
2001: Evoken - Quietus
2002: Reverend Bizarre - In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend
2003: Monolithe - Monolithe I
2004: Nehëmah - Requiem Tenebrae
2005: Tyranny - Tides of Awakening
2006: Warning - Watching From a Distance
2007: Shining - V-Halmstad
2008: Esoteric - The Maniacal Vale
2009: Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue With the Stars

2010: Grand Magus - Hammer of the North
2011: Dead to a Dying World - Dead to a Dying World (2011)
2012: Hell - Hell III
2013: Subrosa - More Constant Than the Gods
2014: Saor - Aura
2015: Panopticon - Autumn Eternal
2016: Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
2017: Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
2018: Bismuth - The Slow Dying of the Great Barrier Reef
2019: Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence
2020: MSW - Obliviosus

2021: Panopticon - ...and Again Into the Light

2022: Messa - Close

2023: Khanate - To Be Cruel

Yeah, a lot of changes again, but what you gonna do??

Sorry, Vinny, I have nothing for The Pit this month.

My suggestions for September, Ben:

Belial - "Of Servant of Belial" (from "Wisdom of Darkness", 1992)

Decayed - "Pagan Winds Return" (from "The Conjuration of the Southern Circle", 1993)

Hey Ben, have you any suggestions for September's playlist?

I have found PoT to be an album that has grown on me more and more over the years. It is less immediate than it's predecessors and rewards more patience. I still rate Spreading the Disease and Among the Living higher, but Persistence is still a high quality thrash release and proves that when Anthrax stripped away some of the irreverence from their schtick that they were deserving of their place in the top tier of the thrash metal hierarchy.

So, here is my revised and extended funeral doom list with my top 30, none of which I have scored at less than 4.5/5.

1. Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence (2019)

2. Evoken - Quietus (2001)

3. Ahab - The Call of the Wretched Sea (2006)

4. Tyranny - Tides of Awakening (2005)

5. Esoteric - The Maniacal Vale (2008)

6. Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper (2017)

7. Skepticism - Lead and Aether (1997)

8. Shape of Despair - Angels of Distress (2001)

9. Worship - Last Tape Before Doomsday (1999)

10. Colosseum - Chapter 2: Numquam (2009)

11. Vin de Mia Trix - Palimpsests (2017)

12. Evoken - A Caress of the Void (2007)

13. Bell Witch - Four Phantoms (2015)

14. Arcana Coelestia - Le mirage de l'idéal (2009)

15. Ahab - The Boats of the Glen Carrig (2015)

16. Ea - Ea taesse (2006)

17. Shape of Despair - Return to the Void (2022)

18. Thergothon - Stream From the Heavens (1994)

19. Monolithe - Monolithe II (2005)

20. Slow - V - Oceans (2017)

21. The Funeral Orchestra - Funeral Death - Apocalyptic Plague Ritual II (2022)

22. Evoken - Embrace the Emptiness (1998)

23. Tyranny - Aeons in Tectonic Interment (2015)

24. Bell Witch - Longing (2012)

25. Loss - Horizonless (2017)

26. Monolithe - Monolithe I (2003)

27. Mournful Congregation - The Monad of Creation (2005)

28. The Slow Death - II (2012)

29. Ea - A etilla (2014)

30. Atavist - III: Absolution (2020)

https://metal.academy/lists/single/229

Sleep - Dopesmoker (2003)

Sleep - The Sciences (2018)

It has been a long time since I was a literal stoner - I kicked all that shit before I turned thirty, but I believe, as I sit here in my early sixties, that I still have the heart and soul of a stoner. Despite this, I have not really paid that much heed to Sleep, which for a band so highly regarded in the stoner metal community, is very remiss of me. Truth is, I bought Sleep's Holy Mountain yonks ago but I wasn't terribly impressed by it's Sabbath copyist approach and I really failed to see what all the fuss was about. It was OK, but nothing special. So today's Fallen hole-filling is dedicated to a double-header from the Californian bong-meisters. Kicking off with The Sciences, whilst sauntering with Koko through the woods, I was pretty impressed with it's ultra-heavy doominess, Matt Pike's heaving riffs are manna from heaven for an old stoner like myself, but where it surprised me was in some of Pike's guitar soloing which reminded me a lot of 80's-era Frank Zappa on tracks like Sheikh Yerbouti's Yo' Mama and for which I am a real sucker.

This afternoon is the turn of the legendary Dopesmoker. I am listening as I type this and whilst I can understand some of the comments I see about needing to be hammered to "get it", I think I still carry enough of that stoner experience to be able to dig into it without the necessary narcotic accompaniment. I'm not gonna produce a full review now, but the crushing and hypnotic riffing along with Al's gruff vocal pronouncements is indeed having a narcotic effect on me and is actually incredibly relaxing.

For my money both of these are better than Holy Mountain and I expect to be teeing them both up again pretty soon and hopefully I'll be able to muster up a review or two. Anyway, it's been a great way to spend a lazy Saturday, now where did I put my old Cheech & Chong tapes?!

As I have given high scores to a couple of drone metal albums recently I am going to update my top drone metal list.

I have also made an actual list:

My Top 20 Drone Metal Releases by Sonny

1. Hell - Hell III (2012)

2. Earth - Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version (1993)

3. Bismuth - The Slow Dying of the Great Barrier Reef (2018)

4. Khanate - To Be Cruel (2023)

5. Trees - Light's Bane (2008)

6. Boris - Boris at Last -Feedbacker- (2003)

7. Monarch! - Omens (2012)

8. Neptunian Maximalism - Éons (2020)

9. Wolvserpent - Aporia:Kāla:Ananta (2016)

10. Khanate - Khanate (2001)

11. Sunn O))) - Life Metal (2019)

12. Crawl - Damned (2023)

13. Big Brave - Vital (2021)

14. Sunn O))) - Black One (2005)

15. Nadja - Radiance of Shadows (2007)

16. Father Sky Mother Earth - Across the River of Time (2017)

17. Endless Floods - Circle the Gold (2019)

18. A Storm of Light / Nadja - Primitive North (2009)

19. Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions (2009)

20. The Body - No One Deserves Happiness (2016)

The opener from Windhand's self-titled 2012 debut drew a line in the sand for other female-fronted doom bands.

Windhand - Windhand (2012)

I am a real sucker for female-voiced stonerised doom metal and one of the prime exponents of the sub-sub-genre is Richmond's Windhand. The self-titled is their debut album from 2012 and it knocked me out when I heard it and it still holds it's power over me to this day. The guitar sound is immense and the riffs are absolutely monumental, like an earthquake in a thunderstorm and when Dorthia Cotterell's otherworldly vocals soar above this sonic devastation, I am in doom metal heaven. There is much competition in this field, but with this and even more so it's follow-up, Windhand have entrenched themselves firmly at the head of the field.

4.5/5

Sentenced - North From Here (1993)

I was looking for something to provide accompaniment on my Friday morning woodland dog-walk and landed on Sentenced whilst perusing my "bands I need to check-out" list. A quick bit of research seemed to indicate that the only Sentenced album that is really required listening is their sophomore "North From Here" and so here I am. I have never listened to Sentenced at all before (at least knowingly) and I found this to be pretty good to be honest. It has a blackened take on melodic death metal with most of the "blackness" coming from Taneli Jarva's vocals (who is nowadays bassist with Albert Witchfinder's Friends of Hell - circles within circles!) They also like to throw in the occasional nod to tech-death for a bit of variation, but this is mainly a bludgeoning deathly assault with a keen blackened edge. It has some nice solos and decent riffs and I do like the vocals, so this gets a big thumbs-up from me. I'm not sure if I'll be checking out too much more from them in the near future though, going by the commentary of the consensus.

4/5

My Dying Bride - As the Flower Withers (1992)

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

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

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

4/5

Sunn O))) - Life Metal (2019)

I've had this one on the back burner for ages now, so decided now was the time to turn the heat up on it. It is Sunn O))), so there is unlikely to be a verdict from me anytime soon as this is not immediate music and I'll need a little while with it first.

Edit: After a couple of run-throughs I am loving this and I am going with a placeholding 4.5/5 for the time being.

Paradise Lost - Medusa (2017)

This week I have been deving a little further into Paradise Lost's discography, with particular emphasis on their later material. I really enjoyed 2015's The Plague Within, but I think that 2017's Medusa may be even better. For the Yorkshiremen to still be able to crank out an album this good after 30 years in the business is impressive by anyone's standards. There are some absolutely brilliant tracks on display here, the opening brace of Fearless Sky and Gods of Ancient is a killer way to kick off a doom metal album. Even the more overtly gothic-tinged tracks are great and that's not something you hear me say too often. I'm gonna spend a little more time with this over the next few weeks, but I am already eyeing a 4.5/5.