Sonny's Forum Replies

"Metal Academy Radio - A Doom Metal Curriculum"??

How about titling them something like:

Metal Academy Radio's The Fallen Playlist: The Month in Doom, Sludge, Drone and Gothic Metal.

To my dismay, a quick google search has already thrown up a ton of AI metal generators and plenty of people willing to embrace it. I can't even begin to express how depressed that makes me. 

In my opinion, if you are actively listening to metal music (artwork I get is different) generated by AI then you are killing metal.  It's smash and grab, attention seeking, cop out media in its worst form and embodies everything I hate about how "anyone" can produce "art" nowadays by doing next to nothing.  Everyone can have a platform to voice their opinion like it means anything by sharing words they read somewhere else in a different order etc......stops old man rant in due course.

AI has its place, I do not dispute that.  In terms of its positive contributions to the world of medicine etc, it is a much welcomed thing.  I feel that without proper regulation it risks abuse and I am not convinced that anyone has any real grip and control of it in that regard.  I see from their home page that Metal Archives will no longer accept submissions that prove to be AI generated which I fully support.

I am completely with you there, Vinny. In scientific endeavours I am sure AI has a role to play, but I don't think AI has any place at all in art, which, at it's best, is essentially an expression of the artist's humanity.

Could we get to a point with AI generated art though, where it could fake it sufficiently well to fool most people. I'm sure we all like to think we could see through it, but will that always be the case?

I haven't seen the Metal Archives homepage yet, but this suggests that there are already AI-generated metal releases. Is that so, and if it is, do we know what any of them are? I originally posited this as a hypothetical question, I didn't think it was already happening.

Do you really think the big corporations will use AI for the reproduction of art in a "respectable and respectful manner" or will they try to exploit it for corporate gain, Andi? I suggest their track record indicates the latter. Surely art, in whatever form it takes, is an expression of the human condition and is completely dependent on the lived experience of the person behind it. If a machine can replicate that at the press if a button, does it not devalue that piece of art? Or are we quite happy to be mere consumers, in the vein of The Matrrix and art have no deeper meaning than a transitory sensitory experience with no emotional currency? 

Hour of Penance - Devotion (2024)

My only previous dalliance with Italy's Hour of Penance was their previous album, 2019's Misotheism, an album about which I can remember very little, but which I see I scored as a 3/5, so evidently I wasn't greatly impressed at the time. However I have come a long way in my appreciation of death metal in the intervening five years and I went into Devotion with a clean slate. My initial impression is that the technical death metal tag is a little bit misleading as it doesn't exhibit too much of the chop-and-change, staccato style I assosciate with a lot of tech-death. Although I understand that style is incredibly well thought-of, it actually does very little for me (except in rare cases) so Devotion's technically very sound, but fairly conventionally-structured style of death metal is much more palatable to me.

The production is excellent and the sound is crunchy and thick, investing the riffs with a huge amount of heft that is perfectly suited to their brutality. Giacomo Torti's skinswork deserves praise, being precise, powerful and tireless in it's thunderous supporting role, driving the riffs along at pace and displaying mastery of the kit without resorting to excessive showiness. This lack of showiness seems to be the band's whole ethos, illustrated admirably by the tightly-played and effective guitar solos which display impressive technical skill without resorting to any kind of showboating and imbue the tracks with a keen cutting edge. There is very little let-up in the album's pacing, with most of the ten tracks fair hurtling along, yet always in a controlled manner with the band never letting their need for speed get the better of them. Paolo Pieri's bellowing roars are the focal point for the band's rage, sounding supremely aggressive and imtimidating for the entire runtime, he sounds like a man barely able to contain his fury at the world.

The thing is, though, impressive though the individual tracks and the musicianship is, they do tend to blur into one a little bit, with only the occasional hymnal motif providing anything like a variation to the blistering brutality. I found plenty to enjoy here, but if I were being hyper-critical, I would say that, as a whole and under repeated listens, the album starts to sound a bit sterile and doesn't really impart too much atmosphere or emotion other than an unchanging inherent violence. I know, it's f---ing death metal, what do you want, right? Well I think I prefer it a bit sloppier but more engaging to be honest.

3.5/5

I loved the Antichrist Siege Machine track, which is unsurprising as the album it is from is currently my #2 album of 2024. Other notables were Darkestrah with the grandiose pomp and circumstance of "Destroyer of Obstacles" really tickling my fancy this morning, Sacrificial Vein's blatant DsO-worship and Tsjuder's uncompromising old-school onslaught also standing out. To be honest, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole playlist, except for the Labyrinthus Stellarum track, which is in large part due to a deep-seated loathing of synthesised vocals of the type used here, but even without that it was largely unremarkable to my ears. The closing Trhä track I also found to be quite emotional for some reason, it's wistful and reflective atmosphere chiming with my own emotional state today.
Once more a stellar effort Ben, thanks a lot.

Darkthrone - It Beckons Us All.... (2024)

I can't believe that eighteen months have already passed since an ice skating Fenriz heralded the arrival of "Astral Fortress", but here we are and, in what is becoming quite the regular occurance, Darkthrone are back again with a new album, entitled "It Beckons Us All". It very much continues the direction of travel of their last few albums, even going back to 2016's "Arctic Thunder", when they started introducing a doominess into their crusty heavy metal sound. Along with Eternal Hails and Astral Fortress this now forms another unholy trilogy for the duo where this crusty trad doom sound has been fully realised into, what I like to call, necro-doom. Obviously nowhere near as influential or seminal as the original unholy trilogy, I think that it is significant that Darkthrone can still deliver the goods more than three decades on, having carved out a niche for themselves in the metal world, where they are pretty much unrivalled at what they do, never becoming dragged in by whatever is trending in the wider world of metal, consistently delivering quality material and with a knack for writing killer riffs which very few can aspire to.

After a few brief seconds of a 1950's sci-fi movie-style synth intro, opening track, Howling Primitive Colonies, kicks off with a marvellously infectious and memorable riff and sets the tone for the album as a whole, taking the early Nineties' trad doom sound of lesser known lights like Penance or Revelation and performing the equivalent of burying it for thirty years so it acquires a rotted, musty odour, by using black metal production techniques and Nocturno Culto's croaky, blackened vocal style that gives it all a real necro sheen. If you have heard any of their new albums since 2016, then you will have an idea what "It Beckons Us All" sounds like, but it is here where that crusty trad doom sound reaches it's peak with some of their most memorable riffs in years. That opener has three killer riffs as it switches from the brilliant introductory riff into a more sustainable and doomier, verse-carrying one which ultimately drops into an uptempo, gallop designed for maximum neck-wrenching action. Howling Primitive Colonies is a really strong opener and is one of the best tracks Darkthrone have written in this latest cycle of their existence, setting the album up in glorious style. Second track Eon 3 is obviously an extension of Astral Fortress' closer Eon 2, sharing themes with the earlier track and serving to tie the two albums even closer together.

The quality never dips either and, as much as I enjoyed Astral Fortress, I think It Beckons Us All... has seen this era of the band hit it's peak and may well be my favourite Darkthrone album since 1995's Panzerfaust. The riffs really are some of the best since the band's heyday of the early nineties and the production has cranked up that crunchy doom sound to a perfect pitch, sounding loads better than AF did. Black Dawn Affiliation, for example, sounds amazing, the crusty crunch of it's main riff providing a driving wall of sound upon which Nocturno Culto's vocals necrotic vocals inscribe the lyrics with Fenriz' drumwork perfectly placed within the mix to reinforce the track's momentum without stealing the thunder from the riffing. And those riffs just keep coming - "The Bird People of Nordland", the doomy "The Heavy Hand" and the longest track and closer, "The Lone Pines of the Lost Planet", all contain memorable and iconic riffs. Songwriting-wise, I think this is some of the tightest the duo have produced in some time, their occasional tendency to let things run away with them being kept under control in the main, allowing the tracks to flow really well and resolve themselves satisfactorily. Even the proggy twists and turns of "The Lone Pines of the Lost Planet" seem vital to the overall narrative and never come across as self-indulgent or padded.

For someone like myself who is already a massive Darkthrone fan, it's always an event and a joy when Fenriz and Nocturno have new material out, but this time around the duo have outdone themselves and totally exceeded my expectations. Two of my greatest musical loves are Darkthrone and doom metal, making It Beckons Us All... sheer nirvana and it will undoubtedly be sat very near the top of the tree when I start making my 2024 best albums list.

4.5/5

Could you add Above Aurora's new album, "Myriad Woes" please, Ben?

Truth be told, I was aware of Aura Noir for quite some time, I bought their Deep Dreams of Hell comp not long after it's release in 2005, but they never really grabbed my attention that much. Then sometime during the last year, on a whim, I went back and checked out their debut album, Black Thrash Attack and my opinion was completely turned on it's head as it blew me away with it's viscerally aggressive delivery.

Released when thrash metal had seen better days, Black Thrash Attack deserves praise for rediscovering the aggression of top-drawer thrash at a time when tech-thrash was the only real game in town.

Anyway, here's my review:

Aura Noir are one of those bands that everyone knows, but very few talk about. Formed by Aggressor and Apollyon, who were both active in the Norwegian black metal underground, they were later joined by Mayhem guitarist Rune Eriksen (aka Blasphemer), prior to the recording of this debut full-length, Black Thrash Attack. By 1996 thrash metal was a shambling corpse that hadn't even recognised it's own demise. It's champions were fallen - Metallica had decided the way forward was trying to add an increasingly lengthening string of zeroes to their bank accounts, Kreator were embracing mediocrity and even Slayer were flailing around to such an extent that recording an album of hardcore punk covers seemed like a good move to them. Into this turgid scene, Black Thrash Attack was thrust like an adrenaline shot to the heart of thrash metal's inert body, causing it to rear upwards with an almighty gasp as life entered it once more. Taking the sound of the burgeoning black metal scene and regressing it to it's earliest days as an offshoot of thrash, Aura Noir injected vitality and good old-fashioned excitement into the once proud beast, producing possibly the best thrash album, at that point in time, since Rust In Peace.

Black Thrash Attack takes the riffs of European legends like Kreator, Bathory and Celtic Frost and marries them to raw and rabid blasphemous black metal to produce a vicious and visceral version of blackened thrash that sounds like the missing link between first- and second-wave black metal, with Darkthrone's early rawness being a particular touchstone. The riffs are all thrash, but the vocals, aesthetic and production values are raw and savage black metal through and through.

Aggressor and Apollyon alternate songwriting duties, with Aggressor being responsible for writing the odd-numbered tracks and Apollyon the even. Somewhat symetrically, they each perform vocals, bass and drums to the other's tracks. This approach offers up the risk of an uneven sound to the album, but I think that if you didn't know about it, it wouldn't be that obvious. Between this and it's predecessor the duo had added future Mayhem guitarist Blasphemer to expand the lineup to a trio, which was an inspired move and certainly adds meat to the bones of the band's sound, his impressive riffing being one of the albums real strengths. Despite the crusty rawness of the production, the playing is terrific and is inordinately precise with the drumming in particular surprising me at how accomplished it sounds for multi-instrumentalists, with Aggressor especially impressing in that regard. Sure it's not Dave Lombardo or even Fenriz, but it is still energetic and exact, with some sublime blasting from time to time.

Let's face it, this isn't sophisticated music and probably won't impress the more cerebrally demanding metalhead, but for those of us who thrive on guts and aggression and who value adrenaline-fuelled headbanging over chin-stroking reflection then Aura Noir turned in a classic with their debut full-length. This is dirty, nasty and aggressive and pushes all the right buttons, breathing new life into the rotting corpse of late nineties' thrash metal.

4.5/5

This one has completely passed me by somehow, but a quick glance at it's RYM page has caught my interest and I will be interested to hear how it pans out.

I've just pinned the Past Playlist Tracklistings threads for each clan forum. Don't know why I didn't do that earlier. Thanks for the suggestion Sonny.

Cheers, Ben.

Hey Daniel, we have had the Melvins track before (last year), so do you want to stick with it or change it?

Did you see my request asking if it is possible to pin the "previous playlist threads" to the top of the clan threads lists next to the "addition request threads", as I didn't get a reply?

May 2024

1. Buzzov•en - "Crawl Away" (from "…At A Loss", 1998) [submitted by Vinny]
2. Solstice - "Only the Strong" (from "Lamentations", 1994)
3. Hamferð - "Hvølja" (from "Men guðs hond er sterk", 2024) [submitted by Sonny]
4. Oromet – “Diluvium” (from “Oromet”, 2023) [submitted by Daniel]
5. Om - "Unitive Knowledge of the Godhead" (from "Pilgrimage", 2007) [submitted by Vinny]
6. Church of Misery - "I, Motherfucker (Ted Bundy) " (from "The Second Coming, 2004) [submitted by Sonny]
7. The Vision Bleak - "Chapter VIII: The Undying One" (from "Weird Tales", 2024)
8. Plaguewielder - "At Night They Roam" (from "Covenant Death", 2021) [submitted by Sonny]
9. Acid Mammoth - "Atomic Shaman" (from "Supersonic Megafauna Collision", 2024)
10. Grey Skies Fallen - "No Place for Sorrow" (from "Molded by Broken Hands", 2024)
11. My Dying Bride - "A Starving Heart" (from "A Mortal Binding", 2024)
12. Altar of Betelgeuze - "Echoes" (from "Echoes", 2024) [submitted by Sonny]
13. Nightfell - "The Swallowing of Flies" (from "A Sanity Deranged", 2019) [submitted by Vinny]
14. Solitude Aeturnus – “Mirror of Sorrow” (from “Into The Depths Of Sorrow”, 1991) [submitted by Daniel]
15. Hell - "Gog" (from "Hell II", 2010)

Above Aurora - Myriad Woes (2024)

Above Aurora are a duo hailing from Poznan in Poland, comprising drummer "O" (Oktawiusz Marusiak) and vocalist, guitarist and bassist, "V" whose only other known alias is "KW". Forming in 2015, "Myriad Woes" is the duo's third full-length, although my own experience with the pair only encompasses their 2016 debut, Onwards Desolation, with it's blend of black and doom metal very much appealing to me.

Myriad Woes kicks off with it's longest track, the haunting "Inner Whispers" which is, essentially, an instrumental, although it utilises several voice samples of people discussing serious mental health-related issues. It takes a number of twists and turns throughout it's eleven minutes from an introspectively ominous opening post-rock build-up, laced through with mounting doom-laden tension which ultimately resolves into a blasting black metal explosion of violence. It is an incredibly thoughtfully constructed track which makes for one hell of an impactful opener and leaves the listener with decidedly disturbed emotions (well it did for me anyway). Second track, Spark, is a much shorter, more straightforward affair, with a mid-tempo doomy riff dominating and V's hoarse bark providing vocal accompaniment, before kicking into high gear for the run in. It's a decent track, and after the emotional wringer of Inner Whispers it allows the listener to get back on an even keel emotionally, although following such a titanic track it feels a little slight and almost a bit disappointing, to my ears.

Elsewhere, Above Aurora like to draw on a couple of different influences with the "bounce" of sections of "Horns of Dread" giving it a vaguely post-punk feel at times and the occasionally jangling guitar work sounding somewhat goth-influenced. I think it is also fair to point out that the doom metal component is not as overt as previously, meaning Myriad Woes isn't a genuine black doom hybrid, but rather the doominess manifests as an ominousness of atmosphere and adds heft to the black metal riffs which beefs up the overall sound. So, if pushed, I would summarise it as a mid-tempo black metal album with a particularly dark and oppressive atmosphere, laced with the occasional haunting melody that also gives vent to aggressive outbursts of blastbeat-driven violence. It is actually quite a brief album, it's five tracks amass a mere thirty-three minutes runtime, but it is so proficiently put together that no moments are wasted or superfluous and come album's end the sensation, certainly that I experienced, is one of having listened to a very substantial release that has delved into the darker recesses of the human psyche and laid them bare. Above Aurora have illustrated here that it is possible to put together a thoughtful and affecting black metal album that can still utilise melodic passages and doesn't have to rely on dissonance and avant-garde stylings to create unease in the listener, but rather achieve it through skillful songwriting and atmosphere creation. I am very much impressed at Above Aurora's development since the 2016 debut and will endeavour to keep an eye on them going forward.

4.5/5

Ben / Daniel, do you think it would be possible to pin the "past playlists" threads to the top of each clan's forum thread lists along with the band addition request threads, in order to make it a bit easier to check if playlist suggestions have been used previously. I know it's not a massive issue, but it would streamline the process a little and I am particularly bad at picking out the past playlists threads in the lists.

US doom metallers Pallbearer have their brand new fifth album "Mind Burns Alive" hitting the shelves on 17th May & I know Sonny will be all over this one. I quite liked their 2012 debut album "Sorrow & Extinction" but can't say that I've investigated anything they've done since. Perhaps now is the time.

I was a huge fan of their debut too, but they have been progressively watering their sound down with more shoegazey elements, to the point where I kind of lost patience with them. The preview of this latest album represented the nadir for me and left me questioning whether I will even be listening to it at all. I suppose I will at some point, but it will be well down my list of priorities.

What is the policy currently on submitting tracks that have been submitted previously, Daniel? With me only relatively recently getting fully into death metal I keep coming across tracks I would like to submit only to find they were done previously, albeit a fair while ago.

Ah OK, I get you, Daniel. I must admit my focus has been elsewhere this month, but I will do my best. I will probably wait until quite late on to submit my suggestions if that's OK with you.

OK Daniel. Is there any particular reason why?

Antichrist Siege Machine - Vengeance of Eternal Fire (2024)

Antichrist Siege Machine are relative newcomers to the war metal scene, their debut EP hitting the stands in 2017, but they have taken the genre by the scruff of the neck and laid down some pretty brutal stuff in the seven years since. With latest album, Vengeance of Eternal Fire, ASM have really hit their groove with a release that delivers an all-out aural battery without the muddy production values that robbed so many of their predecessor's releases of any clarity. Yes, I know that muddy, chaotic sound was part of the appeal of early war metal releases from the Blasphemies of this world and I love that archetypal sound too, but here, thirty-five years on from those earliest canoniacal war metal classics, the genre has moved on from that and the best modern war metal acts don't need to hide behind poor production because they have the chops to produce brutal and blasphemous sounds whilst allowing the listener to actually hear everything they are doing.

Of course the basis of war metal is an unholy alliance of death and black metal, with varying proportions of each within the mix. ASM tend towards the more death metal end of the war metal spectrum, dropping occasionally into quite "groovy" slower death metal riffing, just enough to break things up and provide a little variety, but not so much that it distracts from the overarching blitzkrieg that comprises the vast majority of Vengeance of Eternal Fire and shouldn't be seen as any kind of treasonous act against war metal orthodoxy. The drums sit fairly prominently in the mix, so the blastbeats are given plenty of focus, almost as much as the blistering riffs. Interestingly drummer Scott "S.B." Bartley is also the vocalist, so it must be quite a feat when playing live for him to sing whilst launching salvo after salvo of blastbeats. His vocals actually seem to sit lower in the mix than his drumming, thus giving them a distant, buried feel, despite their bellicose viciousness. The high production values allow the listener to distinguish the riffs far easier than on old-school war metal releases and to appreciate the finer details which may have been lost in the past.

I must say, as much as I love OSWM, I do like the fact that a band like ASM employ a cleaner production style, which does make appreciation of the nuances of war metal much easier - and I say this with no ironic intent because it is obvious that, despite the inherent (almost) continuous blasting and breakneck riffing, that these guys really have great command of their instruments and their overall sound is tight, aggressive and technically solid. At the end of the day, they write killer riffs, have a powerful delivery and are extremely capable of capturing the witheringly blasphemous intent of true war metal. For me this is the band's best release to date and call me heretic if you must, but I think this is capable of standing against the very best that war metal has to offer. To (mis)quote the intro to the Fallout 4 video game "war metal... war metal never changes". Except when it does!

4.5/5

There is a packed slate of releases for the coming Friday with albums from Darkthrone, Deicide and Pestilence being joined by releases from lesser known, but still great, acts like Inter Arma, Pentagram Chile, Ard, Morgul Blade and Fluisteraars.

I am falling behind a bit on my new music listening, so I've only just got to ten releases for last month.

Anyway, here's my top 10 for March (so far):

1. Critical Defiance - The Search Won't Fall [Thrash Metal]
2. Altar of Betelgeuze - Echoes [Doom Metal]
3. Coffins - Sinister Oath [Death Metal]
4. Saturnalia Temple - Paradigm Call [Traditional Doom Metal]
5. Hamferð - Men guðs hond er sterk [Doom Metal]
6. Above Aurora - Myriad Woes (Black / Doom Metal)
7. Grey Skies Fallen - Molded by Broken Hands [Epic Doom]
8. Skeletal Remains - Fragments of the Ageless [Death Metal]
9. Exhorder - Defectum Omnium [Groove Metal]
10. Etoile Filante - Mare tranquillitatis [Atmospheric Black Metal]

I also investigated NWOBHM legends Angel Witch's 1978 demo tape & found it to be a total metalfest, perhaps the most extreme release I've found in this exercise to date actually with all seven songs qualifying as genuine metal. It was also pushing the whole Satanic imagery thing earlier than anything else I've encountered to date. It includes early versions of "Sorceress" & "Devil's Tower" which both appeared on their seminal debut album two years later.

Is that the one that kicks off with Baphomet, Daniel? If so, then yes, that is an absolute classic metal demo in my opinion. They officially released that demo in 2017 to help raise funds for the victims of the Grenfell tower block fire disaster - AW always were a class act.

Good call, Daniel. It's a bit late here now, but I'll be all over this tomorrow. Looking at the track listing on Spotify, it's a straight run through of the Into Darkness album.

This morning track is Motorhead's "The Train Kept A-Rollin" which is yet again a hard rock track which sees us closing out the "Motorhead" album without me having identified a single metal tune on an album that generally seems to command a heavy metal tag from most parties. There's not even enough metal included for a secondary tag in my opinion.

i would have to agree, Daniel. Even Lemmy himself always said the 'head were a rock band and he didn't like being tagged as metal (even though they sometimes were). It's still a great album though and I would dual tag it as hard rock / garage rock.

Used the playlist as the soundtrack to my dog-walking activities this morning, so I didn't keep track of the individual tracks, but enjoyed the list as a whole immensely with only three or so songs that missed the mark for me, with the last one (Mordred) being the hardest for me personally to swallow. Some really great stuff elsewhere though and it helped me maintain a good pace throughout my walk-time!

I fucking love Iron Horse, it may be my favourite on the whole album, but yes, hard rock it is.

Lost Johnny is another of Lemmy's old Hawkwind tracks, from 1974's Hall of the Mountain Grill album and I would concur that it is hard rock.

Anything for May, Ben?

Hi Vinny, my suggestions for May:

Critical Defiance - "Critical Defiance" (from "The Search Won't Fall", 2024)
Destruction - "Black Death" (from "Infernal Overkill", 1985)
Exumer - "Fallen Saint" (from "Possessed by Fire", 1986)
Holy Terror - "No Resurrection" (from "Mind Wars", 1988) [On spotify as "Total Terror Disc 2"]
Vulcano - "Spirits of Evil" (from "Bloody Vengeance", 1986)

Hi Ben, my suggestions for May:

Obsidian Tongue - "Winter Child" (from "The Stone Heart" EP, 2024)
Revenge - "Blood Annihilation" (from "Victory.Intolerance.Mastery", 2004)
The Ruins of Beverast - "Euphoria When the Bombs Fell" (from "Unlock the Shrine", 2004)

Hi Daniel, here are my suggestions for May:

Coffins - "Domains of Black Miasma" (from "Sinister Oath", 2024)
Deconsekrated - "The Axiom" (from "The Hidden Paths" EP, 2021)
Hour of Penance - "The Ravenous Heralds" (from "Devotion", 2024)
Skeletal Remains - "Unmerciful" (from "Fragments of the Ageless", 2024)
Mortician - "Mortician" (from "Hacked Up for Barbecue", 1996)

"Vibrator" is the worst track on the record and I would go for a garage rock tag again.

I love On Stage and bought it on the day of release. I remember it was ridiculously expensive, I think I paid £6 for it, when most single albums went for £2.50 and doubles for about £4.50. Definitely a hard rock record though, with a whole side (Mistreated) being blues rock. I'll still never understand why there was no Stargazer included, though.

I think punk rock is a bit of a stretch and I would tag it as garage rock myself. Originally written for Hawkwind in '74/'75 and released as the B-side to Kings of Speed in '75, so proto-punk at best.

Nocturnus are a band it took me a little while to get in to, but once I got to grips with their debut, The Key, I enjoyed it enormously. Nocturnus is a 7" EP from three years later and following some drama around the departure of founder member, drummer and vocalist on The Key, Mike Browning. Firstly, where you listen to it could make a difference to your opinion. I first found it on YouTube, but the sound is terrible, demo quality and muffled to hell, but the version on Spotify (which is listed as a 2001 release, so may be a remastered version) is much clearer-sounding and definitely superior to the YT version.

There are two tracks on offer here, totalling ten and a half minutes runtime. the "A" side is "Possess the Priest", which is a six-minute slab of glorious Morbid Angel-worshipping OSDM and is my favourite of the two tracks with the transitions from the slower sections to the quicker and vice-versa getting my fists pumping and blood rushing in a good, old-fashioned adrenaline surge. The keyboards are still very much present but, as with The Key, they are quite thin-sounding and merely act as atmospheric support for the riffs. "B"-side "Mummified" sounds a bit like Death during their transition phase from conventional death metal to to prog-tech-death gods and, songwriting-wise, pushes a little bit too far into tech death territory for my preference and, without Chuch Schuldiner's songwriting prowess, it ends up sounding too disjointed for me. Still, it doesn't outstay it's welcome and when coupled with such a great "A"-side the release as a whole works very well as a short EP.

3.5/5

So here's my top ten list of Fallen releases for 2024, so far, which is covering the first three months of the year:

1. Mourning Dawn - The Foam of Despair

2. Spectral Voice - Sparagmos

3. Saturnalia Temple - Paradigm Call

4. Hamferð - Men guðs hond er sterk

5. Grey Skies Fallen - Molded by Broken Hands

6. The Obsessed - Gilded Sorrow

7. Acid Mammoth - Supersonic Megafauna Collision

8. Stygian Crown - Funeral for a King

9. Lair - The Hidden Shiv

10. Monovoth - Pleroma Mortem Est

Hamferð - Men guðs hond er sterk (2024)

Hamferð are a six-piece doom metal band from The Faroe Islands. They have been in existence since 2008, but this is only their third full-length release in all that time, their debut having seen the light of day back in 2013 after winning the Wacken Metal Battle competition at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2012 and it's follow-up hitting the shelves in 2018. I must admit, I have only recently got on board with these guys myself during a dive into exploring more obscure doom metal bands, but I found much to enjoy in both of their earlier releases.

The new album's title translates as "But God's hand is strong" and the lyrics are sung in Hamferð's native Faroese, relating the tragic tale of fourteen faroese whalers who lost their lives at sea in 1915, with the album's title being a quote from one of the survivors upon his rescue. Musically they play strongly melodic death doom with both growled and clean vocals provided by singer Jón Aldará (also of Iotunn and Barren Earth) who switches between styles, to good effect, often within the same track. The band as a whole are very proficient with a nice clean sound that perfectly suits their more melodic approach to death doom. This melodic approach doesn't seek to crush the listener under waves of heavy riffing, but rather  attempts to affect them more subtly with sorrowful airs that worm their way into the consciousness, effecting a deeper sensation of melancholy than a merely bludgeoning approach would achieve. Occasionally they become very light of touch indeed, verging almost on the balladic, which may have come off as a bit corny, were it not for the consummate ability of Aldará who, vocally, never descends into overt melodrama, but who maintains a subtle earnestness throughout, for which he deserves great credit.

I may have given the impression that this is a lightweight album and even though it does like to paint it's sonic landscape with lighter shades, there are certainly heavy moments present. Opener Ábær kicks things off and drags the listener in with a suitably heavy, but also melodic main riff and penultimate track, Hvølja, is the album's heaviest with a monster riff that poses a real risk of crushing the air out of the lungs of the unprepared listener who may have been lulled into a comfort zone by some of the preceeding lighter moments. Elsewhere, second track Rikin features a scarily bellowing Aldará threatening to peel the paintwork with his growls on top of a thundering main riff that you feel at gut level.

Although Men guðs hond er sterk is a concept album, thankfully the music is always pre-eminent over the concept, so none of the tracks feel forced, with the possible exception of the final spoken-word piece, although it isn't at all jarring, especially as it is the final track. The overall impression I get from the album is similar in feel to some of Enslaved's later work, such as RIITIIR or In Times, only within a doom metal framework rather than black metal. I don't wish to downplay the others' contributions, but ultimately it is the astonishing vocal talent of Jón Aldará that strikes me more than any other aspect of the album and on the evidence of this he is one of the absolute best vocalists working in the doom metal field and his performance alone is worth the entry fee.

4/5

Grey Skies Fallen - Molded by Broken Hands (2024)

Formed in 1996 as Eve of Mourning and fast approaching three decades of existence, Grey Skies Fallen are another one of a plethora of seriously underrated doom metal bands. None of the New York four-piece's six albums have even got to the modest heights of 100 ratings on RYM and here at the Academy my sole rating for previous album, Cold Dead Lands, is the only one they have received so far, which is a great shame as these are clearly a talented bunch of musicians who deserve more recognition.

The band's approach to songwriting is quite progressive, with a number of shifts in tone during each track which lends them a story-telling, narrative feel. They don't stick to out and out doom metal, nor do they focus on just one style, but rather draw together strands of death doom, epic doom, conventional doom, gothic metal and progressive metal into grand, epic soundscapes that are imbued with an imperial bombast, yet are also tinged with melancholy and regret, like visiting the ruins of a once mighty empire, whose glory days are a distant memory. As well as a deft skill for writing a certain kind of bombastic doom metal, Grey Skies Fallen are also extremely adept performers, with the band sounding exceedingly tight. Guitarist Rick Habeeb also provides vocals and has a fine voice, with convincing deathly growls as well as really nice, soaring cleans and is never left wanting. Interestingly he is also vocalist with grindcore crew Buckshot Facelift, illustrating just how versatile a singer he really is.

The doomy riffs display a nice range of variety from the gloomily gothic a la My Dying Bride to the bombastic and epic, straight out of Rich Walker's Solstice song book, and all points in between. In fact, I would suggest Rich is quite the influence for Grey Skies Fallen because a sizeable proportion of the soloing sounds like it is delivered by guitarists well-acquainted with Solstice's New Dark Age album. In fact the more I listen to this, the stronger the comparison with New Dark Age grows, with even the production sound being similar and anyone who knows my view on NDA knows that is definitely a good thing in my eyes (or ears, as the case may be). I think this is an album that benefits from repeated listens and a cursory exploration may fail to unpeel it's layers, leaving the listener unfulfilled, but time getting to know it is time well-spent as I found it getting better every time I returned to it. I would also suggest listening to it on a decent set-up as I suspect a phone speaker almost certainly won't do it justice.

Ultimately Grey Skies Fallen are superbly talented musicians and songwriters who have languished in obscurity for far too long and Molded By Broken Hands is a high quality doom metal release that deserves a far wider audience than it is likely to garner.

4/5

Could you add Grey Skies Fallen's latest album, Molded by Broken Hands, please Ben?

Acid Mammoth - Supersonic Megafauna Collision (2024)

Released 5th April 2024 on Heavy Psych Sounds

A band called Acid Mammoth and an album titled Supersonic Megafauna Collision will probably hold very few surprises for anyone who has even remotely been paying attention to the metal scene over the last few years. Yes, predictably enough, these Greeks play super-heavy stoner doom metal with psych-inflected guitar solos and washed-out vocals. Their adherence to the cliches of the genre will, I'm sure, have people asking, "well how many Acid Mammoth albums does anyone actually need?" In truth, if you aren't too sold on this style of doom then one is probably sufficient, but as someone who has always embraced psychedelia and stoner culture, I genuinely enjoy Acid Mammoth's unpretentious approach to the genre and usually snap up anything they issue.

Guitarist / vocalist Chris Babalis Jr. has a quite high-pitched, nasal singing style which sounds like a mix of Never Say Die-era Ozzy and Tobias Forge of Ghost and as such may not be to everyone's taste I suppose, but for me it is perfectly adequate and suits this style of psych-stoner doom well enough. The riffs are thick and fuzzy, groove-laden monsters with plenty of "oomph" that instill a stoned-out hypnoticism via repetition and provide the framework upon which the vocals and guitar solos hang. The rhythm section provide solid support for the riffs with solid, capable and decidedly unflashy work. Song titles like Fuzzorgasm (Keep On Screaming), Atomic Shaman and Tusko's Last Trip further illustrate where the band are coming from, with drugs, the occult and outer space providing the lyrical content for all the stoned-out madness.

It really is very simple, if you dislike bands like Electric Wizard and Cathedral then chances are you won't connect with Acid Mammoth either, but the converse is also true, so you pays your money and you makes your choice. Me, I'm all in with the tripping pachyderm.

4/5

Critical Defiance are back with their third album in five years, looking to cement their position as one of the most kick-ass thrash bands in the world. Hailing from Valparaíso, they have been forged in the furnace of Chile's white hot thrash metal scene. This time around main man Felipe Alvarado has secured the services of guitarist Nicolás Young following his departure from Demoniac, joining fellow ex-Demoniac-er, drummer Rodrigo Poblete who has been a member of Critical Defiance since 2018 and has appeared on all of their albums to date.

The Search Won't Fall delivers on all the aspects of thrash metal we have come to expect from the chilean scene and Critical Defiance particularly. Hi-octane, thundering tempos and a blackened edge adding extra visciousness, along with technically tight performances and great production values equals energetic and thrilling thrash metal that destroys almost everything the genre has produced since it's heyday back in the 1980s. I guess there could be an argument that they are a bit over-the-top with their supercharged riffs, heightened aggression and searing soloing, but I think they keep a lid on it sufficiently that it never becomes self-indulgent or out of control, but rather comes over as an exuberant and glorious celebration of metal. The playing is phenomenal with Rodrigo Poblete's work behind the kit worthy of particular praise due to his powerful and busy style that, despite the crazy tempos he is sometimes asked to keep, never misses a beat. With three guitarists the riffs are incredibly strong and, despite the tempo, the guitarwork always remains distinct and razor-sharp, never losing focus or descending into blurry chaos as other, less skilled, thrash practitioners are wont to do.

Very few bands can pull off this level of aggression and sheer musical velocity within a thrash metal framework as successfully as these guys and I know I am starting to sound like a broken record in this respect, but the chilean thrash scene has rarely failed to deliver on quality over the last few years. Bands like Critical Defiance and Demoniac are at last seemingly receiving the credit they have long been due and no longer do they have to watch from the sidelines while lesser lights take all the accolades. Anyone who thinks thrash metal died off in the early nineties are missing out massively if they can't move beyond their old Slayer or Megadeth albums and start appreciating the young bucks from South America who are storming the barricades with a vigour and passion long thought lost to thrash metal practitioners the world over. If an album like The Search Won't Fall doesn't get you excited about thrash again, then I suggest that the problem is yours and not theirs. Me, I'm holding on for sheer life and going along for the ride.

4.5/5

Quite a loaded slate for Fallen releases this week:

Super-heavy, psychedelic stoner doom Greeks, Acid Mammoth, are back with album #4 on Friday 5th April. Looking forward to this one.

Trad Doom Texans, Destroyer of Light, also have a new one out on the 5th.

Detroit's blackened doomsters, Temple of the Fuzz Witch, also release their third full-length on Friday.

And finally, Albert Witchfinder's Friends of Hell have their sophomore out, again on Friday.

According to the releases pages, 31.3% of new releases added to the site have been rated by at least one member, compared to 24.5% for the site as a whole. So it looks like metal is alive and kicking and people are still stoked to get into new releases.

Whilst listening to Blood Ritual, it struck me how early in black metal's second wave 1992 actually was. Contemporary releases to this were debut albums from Burzum and Immortal and Darkthrone's first dive into black metal iciness, A Blaze in the Northern Sky. Surprisingly, though, Blood Ritual sounds far more like modern Darkthrone than it does their unholy trinity, with a lot of slower tempo riffing that feels more doomy than black metal, a path Fenriz and Nocturno Culto have been exploring with vigour over their last two or three releases, so in a way I guess black metal has finally come full circle.

Anyway, that aside, Samael were obviously influenced by their legendary countrymen, Celtic Frost, with the opening riff of Bestial Devotion sounding like it was ripped directly from the grooves of To Mega Therion. Most of the quicker-paced riffing here sounds quite thrashy and certainly has more in common with Tom G. Warrior than the tremolo riffing being touted at the time by their cutting edge norwegian black metal contemporaries. Add to this the beefier production and it is apparent that Samael aren't going to propogate the same kind of frosty atmosphere as the scandinavians, making the album more blunt force trauma than icy stilleto wound.

Of course that doesn't mean this is a bad album, in fact it most definitely is not. The extended attention I have afforded it over the last couple of days has seen me strengthening my impression of it, to the point where I believe it sits very comfortably between Worship... and Ceremony... and has an appeal all of it's own. Blood Ritual inhabits the space where the old becomes the new and feels a bit like Possessed's Seven Churches in that it inhabits a point of transformation that is more extreme than it's influences, but not quite extreme enough to attain the next level.

Performance-wise it is a step up from Worship Them with the less raw production also allowing for greater clarity, enabling the band members to shine. There are some cool riffs and most of the songs exhibit a degree of progression throughout their runtimes and although I wouldn't label any of the tracks as out and out classics, the likes of the standout track, After the Sepulture, along with Blood Ritual, Beyond the Nothingness and Bestial Devotion are plenty memorable and possess all the wallop I like in my metal listening. As a result of this reappraisal I think it only fair that I boost my score for the album that now sees it edging a 4/5.

I have heard this before, quite a while ago, but jammed between Worship Him and Ceremony of Opposites, it didn't make a massive impression on me, so I am looking forward to seeing how it shapes up now.

I was really looking forward to this one from one of the chilean scene's foremost newer bands and I've given it a few listens already with a view to working up a review. So far it has met expectations and provides plenty of the exhilaration I've come to expect from chilean thrash, so things are looking good. Nice choice, Ben.

April 2024

1. Whores - "Tell Me Something Scientific" (from "Ruiner", 2011)
2. Gaul - "Megalodon" (from "Gaul", 2011)
3. Great Falls – “Old Words Worn Thin” (from “Objects Without Pain”, 2023)
4. Motherslug - "Stoned by the Light" (from "The Electric Dunes of Titan", 2017)
5. Häxenzijrkell - "Part 2: Von Zeit und Form" (from "Urgrund", 2022)
6. Mortiferum - "Faceless Apparition" (from "Disgorged From Psychotic Depths", 2019)
7. Rapture - "Nameless" (from "Songs for the Withering", 2002)
8. Fange - "Césarienne au noir" (from "Perdition", 2024)
9. Saint Vitus - "In the Asylum" (from "Die Healing", 1995)
10. Black Boned Angel - "Supereclipse II" (from "Supereclipse", 2003)
11. Dopelord - "Scum Priest" (from "Children of the Haze", 2017)
12. Sempiternal Deathreign - "The Spooky Gloom" (from "The Spooky Gloom", 1989)
13. Cathedral – “Reaching Happiness, Touching Pain” (from “Forest of Equilibrium”, 1991)
14. Kowloon Walled City - "Gambling on the Richter Scale" (from "Gambling on the Richter Scale", 2009)
15. Mesmur - "Refraction" (from "Chthonic", 2023)
16. Memento Mori - "Lost Horizons" (from "Rhymes of Lunacy", 1993)

Hi again Ben. Could you please add finnish doomsters Altar of Betelgeuze and particularly their new album, "Echoes"?