Sonny's Forum Replies

The highlights for me this month have been Smoulder, Chelsea Wolfe and Fistula.  I keep meaning to explore more of Monolord's discography beyond No Comfort and Vænir looks he likely candidate if I am honest.  Went all skip button on STAKE, Hanging Garden, The Wounded King and Goya (I mean not bad stuff but a tad too similar to Electric Wizard really).  Passed a wet bank holiday Monday nicely though Sonny, keep up the good work.

Thanks Vinny. For me, Vaenir is Monolord's best and I would heartily recommend it if you like any of their other stuff.

Parkcrest - Hallucinative Minds (2017)

Parkcrest's 2020 album, ...And That Blue Will Turn to Red, is one of my favourite modern day thrash albums and is one of the few good enough to stand up to the output of thrash metal's 80's heyday. That classic is the follow-up to this, the Chileans' 2017 debut, Hallucinative Minds. In the three years between the two releases, it is evident what huge strides the band made in both content and execution as the debut is very much an album by a band that still seemed to be developing their identity. This is rawer and more aggressive-sounding than the sophomore, presenting Parkcrest as little more than Slayer wannabes. Songwriting-wise the two are miles apart, the more complex and shifting tones of the latter release's tracks are a huge improvement on the straightforward and somewhat unadventurous efforts here on the debut.

The actual execution is pretty good and it is obvious that these guys knew their way around their instruments at this point. The rhythm section comprises that dual component of busy and powerful drumming coupled with prominent, growling basslines, that are a particular feature of the modern chilean scene and these supply an interesting backdrop over which the rest of the tracks are built. However, the riffs, whilst solid, are derivative and the guitar soloing (in the main) is from the Hanneman / King short, sharp burst school. This does not, of course, make for a poor album, it is actually pretty damn solid and when they do take a few tentative steps towards progressing their sound, as on standout Dark Magicians, they are very good, but this does pale next to it's successor in every way. I woud say that Hallucinative Minds is Parkcrest's Kill 'em All, compared to ...And That Blue Will Turn to Red's Ride the Lightning. I hope their next album is their Master of Puppets then we will all be in for a treat!

3.5/5

I think this is actually the May playlist Ben! Whichever month it may or may not be, it was a sterling effort. It had an especially strong atmospheric black representation this month I thought, with Ulver, Burzum, Dark Space, Imperial Dekadenz and the new Aara being especially awesome. In fact, the only track that didn't really do it for me was the Abigail Williams track. Labyrinthus Stellarum and Totalselfhatred are two takeaways I need to explore further. Nicely done Ben and thanks for the effort to put together such a great list - it made my Sunday afternoon!

Metal Archives only list Nails on the basis of You Will Never Be One of Us, not this record also - wtf?

Quoted UnhinderedbyTalent

This is nothing unusual for Metal Archives which is inherently flawed in its approach. How bands like Converge, System Of A Down, Bring Me The Horizon & The Contortionist are deemed to be not metal enough to qualify for the site but Deep Purple, Scorpions & Rush are is anyone's guess. Even Meshuggah were only "accepted into the Metal Archives based on their material up to and including Contradictions Collapse."

Metal Archives are the very definition of gatekeepers. It is ludicrous that albums like Toxicity, Jane Doe, The Battle of Los Angeles and Mutter can't be listed, or (love them or hate them) bands like Slipknot and Korn, but 70's rock bands who don't play metal at all can. I think they harm their own credibility with this approach, especially their "It's our website, fuck off if you don't like it" attitude.

On a side note, RYM has this release dual-tagged as Black Metal & Dissonant Death Metal. For the record, there's absolutely zero death metal on offer here. It's yet another case of the inadequacies of the RYM genre-tagging model as people are simply voting up Dissonant Death Metal to cover the dissonance in the black metal.

For what it's worth, I thought the previous album sounded a lot more like blackened death metain a number of places and lazy voting may be one of the reasons for death metal being upvoted on this, i.e. the last album had some death metal on it, so this must have too.

Really fantastic playlist this month Vinny, I enjoyed it immensely. The Machine head, 4arm and Gojira tracks in the middle were a bit of  a flat spot for me personally, but other than that I loved it. Some brilliant classic tracks with a nice mix of lesser known stuff. New (to me) standouts were Power Trip and Toxic Wine. Nice work once more, my  friend.

OK, so a one-man black metal project, releasing their second album of the year only three months after the first, does not bode well too often I would suggest. Despite all the initial outward impressions of Hoplites promising Hellenic Black Metal, the project is actually from Ningbo in Zhejiang province, China and so has caught me on the back foot from the off. In order to get a better feel for Τρωθησομένη, I first went and listened to Hoplites' earlier release from the start of the year, Ψευδομένη. This is an album of full-blooded, blasting, dissonant black metal with a heavy death metal influence. Liu Zhenyang chucks everything at it, presenting a bit of a wall-of-sound with a drum machine that, even though it's a machine, sounds like it's about to have an aneurysm, so much blasting is it asked to do. Of course, I'm not keen on such obvious use of drum machines, so that is a minus point I'm afraid. The whole album feels constipated and restricted, despite the dissonant elements being to the fore and he doesn't allow the tracks any time to breathe, so the listener is just battered relentlessly with no time to take stock of things, which I think is something you need to be able to do with a technical/dissonant album of metal like this otherwise it just feels like a beating.

So to Τρωθησομένη, the album in question. Well, this time around the album doesn't feel like quite so much of a pummelling, even though it is in a very similar vein. I feel the drum machine takes a bit more of a back seat, sounding a bit more pushed down in the mix, allowing the riffs more ear time, especially as the dissonant leadwork seems to be less persistent, a lot of the dissonance being derived from the constantly-shifting rhythms - aided by a more prominent bass sound. The riffs are, may I say, a bit more accessible, even verging on thrash riffs on a number of occasions and the whole affair feels less intense than on the previous album. That said, it still doesn't do a whole lot for me and I continue to struggle with the dissonant elements in the same way as I do with excess technicality - it just doesn't rev my engine to be honest. I can hear what is being striven for here, but it isn't my cup of tea and I don't have enough knowledge of the genre to judge exactly how successful Hoplites has been in his endeavour.

3/5

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)

You can't go far wrong with Chilean thrash, so I'll take the Parkcrest debut.

I will take the Epheles EP.

I will take Rituals of the Oak.

May 2023

1. Lord Mountain - "The Sacrifice" from "The Oath" (2023)
2. Smoulder - " Dragonslayer's Doom" from "Violent Creed of Vengeance" (2023)
3. Saturnus - "I Love Thee" from "Paradise Belongs to You" (1997) [submitted by Daniel]
4. Spectrum Mortis - "U-Anne-Dugga" from "Bit Meseri - The Incantation" (2022) [submitted by Vinny]
5. STAKE - "Photonic" from "The Hutch" (2013) [submitted by Ben]
6. Hanging Garden - "The Garden" from "The Garden" (2023)
7. Monolord - "Died a Million Times" from "Vaenir" (2015) [submitted by Sonny]
8. Fistula - "Morbid Incel" from "The Process of Opting Out" (2020)
9. Chelsea Wolfe - "Dragged Out" from "Abyss" (2015) [submitted by Daniel]
10. The Wounded Kings - "Vulture" from "Vision In Bone" (2016)
11. Boris - "Huge" from "Amplifier Worship" (1998) [submitted by Daniel]
12. The Howling Void - "Lord of the Black Gulf" from "Shadows Over the Cosmos" (2010) [submitted by Ben]
13. Goya - "No Place in the Sky" from "Obelisk" (2015) [submitted by Sonny]
14. Neurosis - "The Tide" from "A Sun That Never Sets" (2001) [submitted by Vinny]
15. Full of Hell & Primitive Man - "Rubble Home" from "Suffocating Hallucination" (2023)

Excellent idea, Morpheus! Having a similar feature to RYM so you can only see suggestive album covers when you're logged in and have certain filters off, with the ability to turn those filters on to hide specific topics, might get more people on to the site with no fear of anything they may be sensitive to, and therefore might boost the website's popularity. It might certainly help me a bit, as I'm still living with my sometimes suspicious parents. I know Cannibal Corpse and other standard/brutal death metal bands would get the hidden album cover treatment for their violence and gore. Same with the first few Type O Negative albums (pair of naked women about to kiss, close-up of the frontman's a****le, etc.), which is a good reason I stopped listening to that band besides my break from gothic/doom metal. So what do you think of Morpheus' idea, all?

Not a fan.  I simply skip over/hit the back button on anything I see I don't like (I find most of the depiction of women on metal album covers unpleasant but simply ignore them).  Do you really think Andi that the reason why MA isn't crawling with users is because there are some album covers that are offensive?  Creating a cottage industry out of album cover content (which I imagine can soon become a laborious task for admins) is precisely the wrong thing to do on a site that needs more members, surely a more open and transparent site is what would attract people. 

Let's stop believing that everyone else out there lives by our values, needs and wants - there are some out there who would actively seek such artwork as described on this thread (for whatever reason).  I am not saying it is wrong to be offended by violence, fascism, sexism, gore etc just that I believe that it is my own responsibility to decide if I want to look at it or not.

In all seriousness, I am with Vinny on this one - anything that smells of censorship raises suspicion in me. Filters of this kind just remove the need for any kind of personal responsibility for what we see and look at. Life isn't always pretty and neither are metal album covers. Metal is often a genre that likes to go for the "shock" factor and those of a sensitive nature need to bear that in mind.

Like Vinny, some of the depictions of women in particular on some metal covers I find particularly unpleasant, but I don't expect Ben to have to look at them all in order to keep the site's content comprehensive then have myself pretend that they don't exist by filtering them out.

Well, the weather's getting better here in the UK, so I can spend more times outdoors and the monthly playlists are excellent company whilst working in the garden or whatever. As a result I managed to squeeze this month's Horde playlist in and got a lot from it. I didn't have the actual tracklist in front of me while listening, so I'm not too sure who played what, but it was an enjoyable listen nonetheless. Yes, there were some tracks that weren't up my alley, the cybergrind of Whourkr (I think it was) is something I don't think I will ever come round to. Similarly some of the slam death towards the back end of the playlist wasn't really for me. Other than that, though, there was plenty of great stuff, the first ten tracks were a brilliant start and one in particular I checked out later was the Benediction track, a band I have heard a lot about, but not listened to much, but will definitely do so going forward. So nice work Daniel and hopefully I will try to check out the Horde playlist every month.

Excellent idea, Morpheus! Having a similar feature to RYM so you can only see suggestive album covers when you're logged in and have certain filters off, with the ability to turn those filters on to hide specific topics, might get more people on to the site with no fear of anything they may be sensitive to, and therefore might boost the website's popularity. It might certainly help me a bit, as I'm still living with my sometimes suspicious parents. I know Cannibal Corpse and other standard/brutal death metal bands would get the hidden album cover treatment for their violence and gore. Same with the first few Type O Negative albums (pair of naked women about to kiss, close-up of the frontman's a****le, etc.), which is a good reason I stopped listening to that band besides my break from gothic/doom metal. So what do you think of Morpheus' idea, all?

I agree if we can have a filter that prevents me from seeing any more of those cutesy anime covers that seem to be becoming ever more popular among certain types of bands!

I have been wondering if there is any chance of a "Collection" feature with a button on each release that says "add to my collection" and then a link on each member's homepage to a "My Collection" page. I know a lot of people just d/l or stream their metal nowadays, but an avid collector like myself (and possibly Vinny) may get some good use out of it - I know I would like to be able to see my collection here on Metal Academy - and maybe it would entice new members to stick around a bit.

Also, in a similar vein, how about a "Wishlist" feature to allow member's to keep tabs on albums they want to check out?

They have this on Metal Storm and of course Discogs.  I think it would be a neat idea.  I have slowed down on the physical copies so far this year (he says with an Aosoth album about to be shipped from Season of Mist - ahem) largely due to other financial priorities.  Will always have a physical collection of some kind alongside streaming which is still my majority means of listening to music.

Yeah, I've had to slow down too. Prices have become a bit silly just lately. A couple of examples - a charity shop in town wanted £9 for My Dying Bride's For Lies I Sire secondhand, HMV want £55 for a vinyl of Jethro Tull's Aqualung and I just tried to order the new Lord Mountain CD from Bandcamp and the CD was £9 but postage was £20!! Got it for £13 off amazon in the end.

I have got (most of) my collection logged on both Discogs and Metal Storm, but I would really like to be able to have it here on the #1 metal website too. I really do think it might encourage some new members to return to the site as well, to update their collections.

That Aosoth album cost me just as much for shipping as it did for the record.  Bonkers.

It's no wonder Bezos is a f***ing billionaire - that free shipping is as hard to resist as crack-covered Pringles!!

I have been wondering if there is any chance of a "Collection" feature with a button on each release that says "add to my collection" and then a link on each member's homepage to a "My Collection" page. I know a lot of people just d/l or stream their metal nowadays, but an avid collector like myself (and possibly Vinny) may get some good use out of it - I know I would like to be able to see my collection here on Metal Academy - and maybe it would entice new members to stick around a bit.

Also, in a similar vein, how about a "Wishlist" feature to allow member's to keep tabs on albums they want to check out?

They have this on Metal Storm and of course Discogs.  I think it would be a neat idea.  I have slowed down on the physical copies so far this year (he says with an Aosoth album about to be shipped from Season of Mist - ahem) largely due to other financial priorities.  Will always have a physical collection of some kind alongside streaming which is still my majority means of listening to music.

Yeah, I've had to slow down too. Prices have become a bit silly just lately. A couple of examples - a charity shop in town wanted £9 for My Dying Bride's For Lies I Sire secondhand, HMV want £55 for a vinyl of Jethro Tull's Aqualung and I just tried to order the new Lord Mountain CD from Bandcamp and the CD was £9 but postage was £20!! Got it for £13 off amazon in the end.

I have got (most of) my collection logged on both Discogs and Metal Storm, but I would really like to be able to have it here on the #1 metal website too. I really do think it might encourage some new members to return to the site as well, to update their collections.

My initial take was that this is a great example of underground 80s thrash metal that deserves to be held up as an equal to contempories like Testament and Exodus. The opening couple of tracks are pretty good thrashers, with Revenge having a truly memorable chorus to rival anything around at the time (despite the track dragging on a little bit too long) and both tracks having decent riffs,  In fact, I would suggest that the whole album is all about the riffs as singer Bob Mayo has a nice rasping delivery, but is restricted in range and the lead guitar work is too understated, almost to the point of non-existence bar a couple of notable exceptions (Revenge again being one such). It even seems a couple of times like a solo is coming, but then one never materialises and they just keep playing the riff over and over. And therein lies the problem - when an album is primarily about the riffs they need to be absolutely top-knotch and those on Why Play Around? aren't really that, never accelerating much beyond mid-pace and never leaping out and grabbing you by the throat. So my initial rose-tinted view was soon dispelled because, basically, that is all there is to the album. This is especially problematic when taken in context, with a plethora of death/thrash hybrids abounding in the underground at this time and starting to break out into the wider metal world, when these kind of plodding riffs just weren't cutting the mustard anymore and it's easy to see why Wargasm got left behind.

Ultimately Why Play Around? doesn't really offer enough to hold the attention over repeated listens, although for a quick punching-the-air headbanging workout it is fine. Throw in a couple of redundant interludes that add absolutely nothing and we are on a downward spiral really. Essentially this is nothing more than a footnote in thrash metal history for good reason and if any of the tracks other than Revenge popped up on the monthly playlist then I doubt they would raise much of an eyebrow from me.

3/5

I have been wondering if there is any chance of a "Collection" feature with a button on each release that says "add to my collection" and then a link on each member's homepage to a "My Collection" page. I know a lot of people just d/l or stream their metal nowadays, but an avid collector like myself (and possibly Vinny) may get some good use out of it - I know I would like to be able to see my collection here on Metal Academy - and maybe it would entice new members to stick around a bit.

Also, in a similar vein, how about a "Wishlist" feature to allow member's to keep tabs on albums they want to check out?

1782 -  Clamor Luciferi (2023)

Released 14th April on Heavy Psych Records

1782 are a Sardinian three-piece who were formed by members of stoner / heavy psych band Raikinas back in 2018 and are a band I have been following fairly closely. They hadn't yet produced anything earth-shattering, but I could hear that they had potential for some decent stuff so stuck with them. Clamor Luciferi (Scream of Satan) is their third full-length since 2019 (so they aren't hanging around) and marks yet another step up the stoner doom ladder for the Italians. They are heavily redolent of stoner doom masters Electric Wizard, who I suspect are a major influence, not just on their sound but also on their subject matter, the occult and anti-religion featuring heavily in their lyrical themes.

Starting off with a short, foreboding organ piece, A Merciful Suffering, (not exactly an original device in occult stoner doom circles, but effective nonetheless) 1782 set the scene for the journey through the house of the devil that is Clamor Luciferi. As the organ subsides that thick, syrupy, fuzzed-up guitar kicks in, joined by a ponderous drum-beat that portends ill like some bell of doom. The vocals are of the rough, but washed-out, distant-sounding variety, heard as if from a great fog-ridden distance, that intone all manner of devilry and misdeed. The following forty minutes comprise unrelenting hugely distorted, ponderous riffs that diverge very little from stoner doom orthodoxy and an ominous atmosphere derived from occult horror themes of demon-summoning and devil worship. There are a couple of short solos on the album, but that isn't what this is about, it's all about the atmosphere.

All-in-all this hasn't got much by way of originality, but it is pretty damn heavy and ticks all the boxes you would expect from a band so heavily influenced by Electric Wizard, so if that sounds like something you would enjoy then give it a spin. Personally, I enjoyed it, but I have always been a sucker for stonerized doom, so that's not too much of a surprise (like the album).

3.5/5

Hi again, Ben. Could you add 1782's latest  Clamor Luciferi please?

I have actually listened to Wintaar a bit and have rated two or three of his albums, the best of which is Nordic Glares Bless the Dead which I described at the time as "Rabid-sounding, blasting, russian black metal that will strip the paint off your car at fifty paces!" Not bad, but not great either. I guess it's easier for a lone wolf outfit to keep going in the face of massive indifference than it is a full band. You have got to admire artist's like these tenacity in a way. Might check a couple more of his albums out now you've reminded me of him, Ben, as I haven't listened to him for a while.

Lord Mountain - The Oath (2023)

Lord Mountain are a four-piece from Santa Rosa, California who have a really nice trad doom sound. They released a solid four-track ep in 2016, which was then re-released as a split album with Oakland doomsters, Mesmer. Now 2023 sees the release of their debut full-length, The Oath. If, like me, you are a fan of traditional doom with a stoner twist, then The Oath should hold at least some appeal for you. These guys aren't trying to reinvent the wheel, but are taking a tried and tested recipe and producing a tasty treat for anyone who likes this particular flavour of doom metal. The Oath has an excellent guitar tone, with just the right amount of distortion and a satisfying depth that really ticks my boxes. The riffs are suitably weighty and are fairly memorable in the main, sometimes straying into heavy metal territory when the pace picks up and there is also some quite tasty lead work - such as during second track, The Giant. The rhythm section is clear as a bell with a throbbing bass and a drummer who is exceedingly competent without being flashy. The vocals are pretty decent, albeit functional, as they are in a lot of traditional doom (it is very rare for a trad doom outfit to have really outstanding vocalist) but they suit the material perfectly well and are possibly even above average for this style of doom metal.

Reading this back it feels a little bit like damning with faint praise but, believe me, Lord Mountain have released a really nice slab of trad doom here and although it makes no attempt to rewrite any of the rules it is highly enjoyable and should appeal to any fans of trad doom who just want another quality fix of the doomy stuff.

4/5

I think a chronological approach to certain subjects can certainly be helpful. For instance, when I was struggling to get into death metal my Death Metal: A Voyage of (Re-)Discovery project really helped by taking it back to the very early demos and seminal releases and in so doing I gained a better insight into, and appreciation of, death metal and so found myself a way into a genre which I now "get" much better and am really enjoying exploring (when time allows).

Nice review Daniel and a real insider's view of a little-known, albeit influential, act from days gone by. It's great to get a picture of such an underground band from someone who was a contemporary of theirs. I, in common with many others I suspect, had never heard of them before.

Is that release on u-toob?

I think the members of a clan are probably best to judge if a release belongs in that clan. If moving a release out of a clan results in it being moved to non-metal there is surely nothing stopping someone else from submitting a further Hall request for it to be included elsewhere if they feel it deserves inclusion in a different clan. I would have thought this would be a very rare occurence as usually Hall requests are quite well considered before being submitted.

If a release is tagged as some kind of extreme Horde genre such as gorenoise or grindcore for example, yet the Horde members don't believe it has enough metal to qualify - maybe it is just harsh noise or extreme hardcore punk - I don't think most non-Horde members would really have enough knowledge of those extreme non-metal genres to judge it's merits accurately. So, what I am saying is, I think things are best left as they are.

So, a quick question to the playlist compilers: Which of the sub-genres you encounter when compiling the playlists do you least enjoy checking out for new playlist entries. I think I have never made any secret of my aversion to a lot of gothic metal, so it is that which irritates me most when I need to find new tracks to include in The Fallen playlist. Which are your particular sub-genres where you have to bite the bullet for the greater good?

Sorry I haven't been adding any suggestions recently, Ben. I haven't been listening to much black metal lately, but I did check out the playlist and it was terrific. The only one that didn't do much for me was Falaise, but I have always struggled with them. Nice to hear a track from Moonsorrow's Tulimyrsky EP - the title track is my favourite Moonsorrow track and Back To North is very good too (despite being a cover). It's always brilliant to hear tracks from Mayhem and Panopticon as well. I really must get it together and check out the new albums from Azaghal and Sarcoptes as both sound great. Nice work once more and I will endeavour to get a suggestion or two in next month.

Cheers, Ben. I'll squeeze them in, don't worry.

The closing track from Lååz Rockit's underwhelming second album, No Stranger to Danger, is clearly the album's highlight:

Lååz Rockit - No Stranger to Danger (1985)

I could be quite stubborn when I was younger and if I took against something then that was that. One thing I despised with a passion (and still do, to be honest) was glam/hair metal and anything connected to it. The problem was, that if I got it into my head that something was glam metal then I completely blanked it from my life. Lååz Rockit were one of those who fell foul of my prejudice, by the most tenuous of excuses which was that they had a name that sounded glam. Yes, I really was that pigheaded that I didn't even look into it further, but condemned them even without a trial!
Anyway, I have since found out, of course, that Lååz Rockit aren't glam metal at all, nor were they ever and so I have recently been checking them out, first via third album, Know Your Enemy, which was a terrific thrash / USPM metal record that I enjoyed a lot. I then moved onto the debut, City's Gonna Burn which was a reasonable example of mid-eighties, twin guitar heavy and speed metal.

So today I have been checking out sophomore No Stranger to Danger and I gotta say upfront, this is my least favoured of the band's first three albums. The band seem to have been making a conscious effort to produce an album of sing-along metal anthems and the majority of the tracks feel a bit flaccid to me as a result. Guitarists Phil Kettner and Aaron Jellum do make a plucky effort to save these tracks with some high velocity solos, but the riffs are quite mundane and the choruses are designed to get a crowd singing along. Unsurprisingly my favourite tracks are the more thrashy Backbreaker and Wrecking Machine which are more indicative of where the band were heading for the follow-up and stand head and shoulders above the rest of the material, particularly Wrecking Machine, which at least ends the album on a high.

Ultimately, for me, an unsatisfying slab of heavy metal that only offers occasional glimpses of what the band are really capable of.

3/5

Exciter - Long Live the Loud (1985)

Exciter never played much of a part in my metal world. When I first encountered them on the Hell Comes To Your House compilation, they were massively overshadowed by Metallica and, in my mind at least, they never recovered from that shortfall. That is, until recently when I have been revisiting a lot of the stuff from the early eighties that I missed or gave short shrift to first time around. As a consequence, I have checked out Exciter's first three albums over the last few weeks and I have been pleasantly surprised by what I hear. They were named after Judas Priest's opener from Stained Class and that is a fitting place for them to acquire their monicker, being one of the speediest, most adrenaline-fuelled of JP's earlier tracks. Exciter do actually kick ass and, especially if taken within context, they were pretty damned fast for their time. They took the heavy metal of Priest and supercharged it with Venom-like aggression (minus the satanic schtick) and produced something which is vital-sounding and, yes indeed, exciting. Whilst not being 100% reliant on speed - they do occasinally throttle things back, such as on Long Live the Loud's closing track Wake Up Screaming - velocity is where they excel. Speed metal was very well served by these Canadian's during those mid-eighties years when Venom seemed to be in terminal decline and, along with Belgium's Acid, Exciter were probably the best of the speed metal brigade as they battled to be heard against the thrash metal tsunami that was breaking over the mid-eighties. I am glad to finally have given Exciter the time they deserve and indeed I now recognise them as a reasonably important act in the eighties metal expansion and although none of their releases will ever match up to those Metallica eighties' albums, they were vital to a much eclipsed metal sub-genre in speed metal.

4/5

Amduscias - S/T (1998)

Amduscias were a Japanese black metal three-piece whose sole output is this sub-thirty minute album released in 1998, after which they split-up. To be honest, if you went into this blind, you would assume this was some undiscovered Scandinavian band as the sound is very much Scandinavian second wave black metal. The band formed in 1990 and sound so genuine that I would assume that they had excellent knowledge of the early Nineties' Norwegian scene. Nowadays of course, this is hardly earth-shattering stuff, the drums in particular are unremarkable and when stood next to A Blaze..., De Mysteriis... and Burzum's debut it obviously falls short, but it is still a fairly enjoyable blast of old-school second wave BM from an area of the world that is under-represented in the genre. I don't know if these guys were ever responsible for setting fire to pagodas, but I wouldn't be at all surprised!

3.5/5

I always find sludge to be quite a warm genre. Sure, it can be plenty abrasive, but generally the distorted doom metal element adds a certain warmth to the sound. Here, however, Coffinworm have imbued their sludge with an iciness forged from black metal which removes any comforting fuzziness from the album and replaces it with a cold, implacable visage that suggests that the band couldn't care less whether you like it or not. But the joke's on them because it seems everyone, myself included, does love it - haha!

Sludge metal strikes me as a genre that it is quite easy to get wrong and there are plenty of releases that leave me cold, but with IV.I.VIII Coffinworm have turned in an album that manages to get the sludge part right, whilst producing something a bit different-sounding to the plethora of sludge acts who seem to have emerged from every piece of available wordwork over the last decade or so. There is a dichotomy at the heart of IV.I.VIII, which is that it feels like it is a really abrasive and pugnacious album, but before you know it, it has sucked you in with an unexpected melodic riff before hammering you with the battering ram it has had hidden from view. Kind of the epitome of the steel fist in the velvet glove.

This is some seriously heavy-sounding shit and the blackened edge to the vocals and some of the guitarwork sound like a ripsaw trying to saw the top of your head off while the riffs are oppressive and overbearing, looming over the listener like an impending tidal wave. In addition to the black metal influence there also seems to be a detectable death metal component to some of the riffs that makes them really tight-sounding (and all the more oppressive for it). Some bands seem, to me anyway, to strive for extremity by making themselves virtually unlistenable, so drenched in dissonance and angularity are they in a search for the holy grail of inaccesibility that they forget about writing any sort of "songs". Luckily Coffinworm have been able to attain extremity without completely eschewing what makes music so cool in the first place - the songs. The tracks here are well-written and have both a direction of travel and a resolution, whilst still sounding like world-killers.

Coffinworm truly aren't for the faint-hearted Fallen member, but if you enjoy life on the outer limits of the clan's remit, then that is definitely where you will find IV.I.VIII. like some Arthur C. Clarke monolith waiting to point unwary metalheads towards the next evolutionary level of metal extremity.

4.5/5

Fistula - The Process of Opting Out (2020)

Fistula are a sludge metal five-piece from Ohio, who have managed to retain the resentful, pissed-off attitude of harcore punk better than an awful lot of so-called sludge acts. The opening few tracks of The Process of Opting Out, Costa Doing Business and especially Ratpiss and Cerebral Conflikt, really let rip on the hardcore front and would appeal to any Black Flag fan I'm sure. As the album progresses though, the band seem to slow their attack and revert to a more usual sludge metal sound, but never at any point do they sound any less angry at the world. This really is quite vituperative and vocalist Brian Neaville spits and screams his way through the lyrics in an angst-fuelled harangue against seemingly everything and everyone as the riffs change velocity from headlong hardcore charges to heavily-laden, sludgy chugs. The production is very clear and that adds a sharper edge to the sound than the muddiness often employed in sludge metal production, allowing these short, uber-aggressive tracks to give your brain more of a beating than you may have expected. An album this intense could outstay it's welcome if extended too much, but Fistula, learning from the best hardcore practitioners, kept it to under half-an-hour and so the listener never has chance to become inured to, or wearied by, it aggressiveness.

All in all this may appeal as much to a hardcore fanatic as much as a sludge metal fan and if you are more inclined to the doom aspect of sludge and much less to the punk elements then The Process of Opting Out may leave you unimpressed. Me, I am fairly chuffed to have stumbled across it and enjoyed it enough to be willing to check out more of the band's discography.

4/5

Although i haven't delved back into their early discography, including Shadows Over the Cosmos, I am familiar with all their releases since 2013's Nightfall. Judging by these later albums, I have found THV to be a solid funeral doom outfit without them (or him as it's a solo project) ever threatening the position of the genre's premier bands like Esoteric or Skepticism. I will check this out though - maybe it was the band's peak and I do like their stuff anyway.

It's unanimous then - this one's a real winner for the features feature!

I shot Bjorn our reviews too & I’m sure he’ll be stoked. He told me that he was personally responsible for the recording, mixing & mastering of the album & he definitely has a knack for creating atmosphere. I was a bit worried when going into the album as it could have gotten awkward if I didn’t like it. I was prepared to simply not review it if that was the case but I’m really glad it wasn’t.

Sonny, Ben & I were waiting for your review as we both knew you’d love this one.

Any self-respecting death doom outfit should get on the phone to the guy and book his services, forthwith!

It's not too often that I have reviewed the Horde features, but the mention of diSEMEBOWLMENT caught my eye and I thought "hmm.. maybe there's something here for me this month". An excellent pick from Ben and I am genuinely stoked to have heard it.

All three of us have stated in our reviews that there's little to no black metal on this release, so it is somewhat shocking that so many RYM members are voting that up. I have to wonder whether they've actually heard the album.

Anyway, I'm stoked that you guys enjoyed this feature as much as I do. I plan to check out more of their discography.

I can only assume that people have voted black metal up solely on the fact that most of the band members have also been in black metal bands, which certainly does beg the question "have these people even listened to this album?" as you so rightly ask, Ben. 

I too will be looking to delve further into Temple Nightside's discography quite soon as this really was exactly my sort of thing.

Temple Nightside are a new one on me, but I could tell from the off that this was going to be right up my street. I have made no secret of my love for old-school cavernous death and death doom metal and that is what these guys provide in spades. They seem to have gone all-in on the cavernous atmosphere, looking to funeral doom for inspiration in layering the primordial ooze over their sound. This is so funereal in atmosphere that it sounds like it is being performed by a band who have been buried alive and is seeping up through the earth into the ears of the listener. Drummer Basilysk is a member of reasonably well-known funeral doom band The Slow Death and guitarist/vocalist IV was the sole member of blackened funeral doom project Funeral Mourning, so these guys have an understanding of funeral doom that serves exceedingly well their intention to make The Hecatomb as cavernous-sounding as possible.

Taking their cues from OSDM giants like Autopsy, The Hecatomb combines classy death metal riffs (the opener Graven has an absolute killer of a main riff) with slow, ponderous doom to produce a multi-faceted attack on the listener's eardrums. Although this approach is almost as old as death metal itself, Temple Nightside manage to make The Hecatomb a must-listen by their sheer ability to craft exceptional death metal tunes which, when married with one of the most mouldering and pestilential production jobs ever, results in an album any self-respecting extreme metal fan should be clamouring to get their clammy, hook-clawed mitts onto.

While I do consider this to be one of the best cavernous death metal albums I have heard since Mental Funeral, great as the atmosphere works on the slower sections, I do have some reservations about it's effectiveness on the faster parts, with the muddiness of the production oh-so slightly blunting the onslaught of the death metal blasts to my ears. This, however, is nitpicking of the highest order and I am a bit embarrassed even to have brought it up so, fuck it, forget I mentioned it! 

The Hecatomb is yet another album that so suits my taste that I am getting impatient to join the ranks of The Horde clan proper and truly wonder why it has taken me so many years to really get into death metal.

4.5/5

As an aside, where the fuck do listeners on RYM hear any black metal here? There are comments on the genre voting page for this, bitching that it shouldn't have a funeral doom secondary (which it should) whilst completely ignoring the fact it has a black metal primary despite it containing absolutely fucking zero black metal.

9th April 2023, eight albums on the anniversaries page with a grand total of one rating. Is this the most dismal day of the year for metal releases?

Here are my suggestions for May's playlist Vinny:

Acid - "Black Car" from "Maniac" (1983)
Exciter - "Mistress of Evil" from "Heavy Metal Maniac" (1983)
Warhead - "Kill the Witch" from "Speedway" (1984)
Metallica - "Creeping Death" from "Ride the Lightning" (1984)
Ripper - "Await Your Death" from "Raising the Corpse" (2014)
Rumpelstiltskin Grinder - "Grab a Shovel (We've Got Bodies to Bury)" from "Buried in the Front Yard..." (2005)

Note that we can't currently have a subgenre of a subgenre here at Metal Academy (I feel like that's a good thing), so if we want Dissonant Death Metal on the site, it can't be a subgenre of Technical Death Metal, which is already a subgenre of Death Metal. There are other instances of this on RYM (Gorenoise is a subgenre of Goregrind), but I've just been adding the releases here with the parent subgenre. It just hasn't felt right to me adding every album listed as Dissonant Death Metal on RYM as Technical Death Metal. As Daniel suggests, there are albums that are clearly dissonant, but not overly technical.

As always though, if anyone disagrees with our suggested approach, or can think of another way of doing things, let's discuss.

But an album could still be tagged as both technical and dissonant death metal could it not, Ben? If this is the case then any overtly technical dissonant releases could be dual-tagged. I still think this is a good move.

Although I am far from an expert, I think that there is sufficient distance between the two that a separation is justified. I am one of those who isn't so fond of dissonant death metal, but enjoys bands like Nile, so I can see a benefit for myself at least.

At the risk of once more illustrating my ignorance, I didn't even know that was a thing. Sounds horrible!

Rumpelstiltskin Grinder - Buried in the Front Yard... (2005)

Buried in the Front Yard... is the debut album from Philadelphia's Rumpelstiltskin Grinder and it is an album of quite typical 2000's thrash with a death metal flavour. The production has a density and clarity that was never afforded to classic-era thrash metal and is a significant pointer to how metal recording techniques had advanced over the previous couple of decades. Unfortunately, I got very little out of this to be honest. Yes, the riffs have a deathly weight to them, but are decidedly unremarkable for the most part and fail to linger in the memory beyond the final bar of each track. The band's aesthetic seems to be quite humourous with the comic monicker, the cartoonish cover art (which is reminiscent of Acid Witch's cartoon horror covers) and the droll track titles, such as Grab a Shovel (We've Got Bodies to Bury), Stealing E.T. and Ode to Tanks. This would lead you to expect some goofiness in the vein of Municipal Waste or Gama Bomb, but they don't commit to it and the humour doesn't come through much at all. In fact, I would say they sound too intense for humour, coming on more like Pantera than Municipal Waste, especially on the vocals, which sound like an attempt to channel Anselmo or Rob Flynn.
To be honest, I'm not interested enough to say much more about it. It truly isn't an awful album, but it does absolutely zip for me.

2.5/5

Ah, I thought it was listed under the Guardians. I'm getting a bit confused over the whole site non-metal inclusion policy to be honest.

I guess that makes it my turn then. I will take the Amduscias album as I haven't heard too much Japanese black metal.

OK, I'm a day late, but better that than never, right?

Paradise Belongs to You was the debut album from Copenhagen's death doomers Saturnus, released a full six years after their formation in 1991 they had had plenty of time to work up the material for their introduction to the metallic masses. It shows too, because the band presented a set of well-developed tracks here that it is very obvious they felt exceedingly comfortable with. Production-wise (courtesy of Flemming Rasmussen) they have hit a nice spot between clarity and a sheen of just enough muddiness to render the material suitably doomy and gloomy sounding. They have, however, taken the rather puzzling decision to include a plethora of birdsong samples into the album, which can be a bit distracting, although they are brief enough not to provide any lasting irritation.

Saturnus' whole vibe is very much derived from The Peaceville Three, particularly My Dying Bride's gothic death doom leanings and that sound is exceedingly well reproduced here. Slow, towering chords and distant and ephemeral layers of keyboards combine to produce a mournful and introspective atmosphere while Thomas Jensen's understated vocals, both death growls and cleans, effectively convey a deep and abiding melancholy. The songs are well-written and develop nicely during their respective run times with some particularly melodic and memorable riffs, such as the instantly recognisable one unveiled during Christ Goodbye or the opening riff to Astral Dawn. Their song development ensures that none of them drag on just for the sake of filling runtime, but seem to actually be going somewhere and provide a certain satisfaction at track's end that the listener has completed a journey with the band through a particularly mournful episode in their life. There are also a couple of folky interludes, in The Fall of Nakkiel (Nakkiel Has Fallen) and the short instrumental As We Dance the Paths of Fire and Solace, which break up the doomier material and provide a nice contrast in atmosphere. The album also closes with a gentle, medieval-sounding piece that leads into a final chorus of birdsong.

Instrumentally, the Saturnus guys seem very proficient and everything seems to be very professionally realised but that means naught if you don't have the songs and these Danes certainly do. Sure, it probably sits at the lighter end of the death doom scale, but I actually think Saturnus' songs are better than the comparable material from My Dying Bride, mainly because they don't lean as heavily on the whole gothic schtick. I'm sure that will surprise many readers of this, but hey, what can I say?!

(Very Strong) 4/5

Going for a shit cover kind of paid off last montth, so this month I'll go for a band with a ridiculous name and take the Rumpelstiltskin Grinder album.

Your pick, Vinny...