(Andy Synn presents a collection of four six killer cuts from last month you may have overlooked)
Today’s edition of “Things You May Have Missed (But Shouldn’t)” is a little larger than usual – six artists/albums rather than the normal four – because it was utterly impossible to keep up with the overwhelming torrent of new records that came out in September (and I’m not just talking about all the “big” releases).
Hell, just to get it down to just six bands I had to leave the likes of Ars Veneficium, Convictive, Glare of the Sun, Servant, Ubiquity, and more on the proverbial cutting room floor… so if you’re still looking for stuff to check out after listening to all the albums in this article then there’s a few more names to lend your ear to!
BLOOM DREAM – IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY
Look, I love a big, bruising breakdown as much as anyone (well, maybe not anyone) but the creative catharsis provided by the more artfully abrasive side of the Hardcore scene has absolutely been one of the highlights of 2024 for me, and Bloom Dream‘s vibrant, visceral, and vividly emotive new album, It Didn’t Have to Be This Way has been a major highlight all on its own.
Over the course of these six songs the Floridian fivesome repeatedly rip out their own hearts and shove them down your throat – an appropriately raw and unnervingly intimate image for an album whose blistering blend of volatility and vulnerability clearly owes a lot to the likes of Converge and Poison the Well – with songs like feverish, wild-eyed opener “No Tomorrows 1999” and the anxiety-inducing “Blackwater” juxtaposing keening melodies and moments of contemplative calm with volcanic eruptions of stunning aggression.
Indeed, it’s this latter aspect which first drew me to It Didn’t Have to Be This Way, as the absolutely massive riffs which form the backbone of tracks like “Community Service” (probably the proggiest number on the entire album, due to the way it juxtaposes minimalism and maximalism in constant competition) and monstrous mid-album meltdown “Gilded Crowns” have such an outsized impact that you may well find – as I did – all your normal expectations (and prejudices) quickly crushed (both mentally and sonically).
And while that’s not all the album has going for it – far from it, in fact, as the incandescent rage of anti-cop anthem “State Idols” and the frantic desperation driving “Ambulance” possess just as much emotional impact as they do a physical one – let’s face it, when something like this hits you as hard as a song like the aptly-named “Violence” you’re unlikely to be able to think about anything else for quite a while afterwards.
DECEITOME – DECEITOME
It’s been said that I’m too harsh on – and expect too much from – the OSDM scene… and, I’ll admit, I am perhaps a little more critical than most reviewers when it comes to bands shamelessly paying tribute to their “Old School” influences (many of which, let’s be honest, are still alive and kicking today).
Still, even I’m able to admit when I’m impressed by a band who, despite not really doing anything particularly new, are absolutely capable of capturing exactly what it is that people love about the genre – which is precisely what Estonian extremists Deceitome have done with their recently-released, self-titled second album.
As well as owing a lot to such seminal artists as Bolt Thrower, Grave, and Incantation, tracks like the gruesomely groovy “Pit of Despair” and the infectiously intense “Absolute Zero Persistence” (the latter being a personal favourite) also share a lot in common with the likes of Bæst, Ashen, and Phenocryst in the way they combine a ruggedly retro aesthetic with a more subtly modernised sense of sharper, tighter songwriting.
It helps as well that the albums’ production serves to bring out the best in the band’s music – from the gnarly guitar tone which dominates the likes of “Wall of Delusive Horizon” and doom-laden mid-album highlight “The Doorlit” to the piercing leads and sharpened cymbals which cut through all the sonic savagery of “SnoVVolveS” and “Feed Me All the Blood in the World” – so if you’re looking for some filthy, furious fun whose main role seems to be to remind you just why you fell in love with Death Metal in the first place… then look no further!
FLOSCULE – Ї
There are lots of different ways to resist… and, sometimes, in the face of aggression, simply continuing to exist, and create art, can be a potent way of affirming that you refuse to be beaten.
Hence we have Ї, the debut album from Ukranian Black Metallers Floscule which finds them incorporating influences from the history and folk traditions of their home-country – “A Tree of Life”, for example, interpolates melodies from a 19th century song that the Soviet and/or Russian authorities have frequently attempted to ban – into a simmering cauldron of ragged riffs, undulating rhythms, and scarred, snarling vocals.
Sonically reminiscent of early Wolves In The Throne Room as seen through a punkier, crustier prism, songs like seething opener “Fire Breathers” and the shadowy “Eclipse” successfully capture the impulsive, electrifying intensity of a band pushed to the edge by the ugliness and injustice of the world around them, each and every track marrying melancholy melody and fiery fury in equal measure.
It’s the album’s second half, however, where Floscule‘s sound really comes into its own, however, beginning with the oppressive darkness of “Glimmer of Light” and the grim grandeur of “Endless Youth” – both of which raise the bar in terms of the album’s delicate balance of atmosphere and aggression – before the climactic triumvirate of the scorching “Burn”, the frenetic “At the Edge”, and soaring final epic “Rain Keeps Falling” practically erupt out of the speakers in an explosion of elemental energy.
INTERLOPER – A FORGOTTEN LOSS
Now this is a band I meant to keep a closer eye on – having originally overlooked their first album back in 2021 – but somehow I still managed to almost miss the release of A Forgotten Loss.
Thankfully I was able to catch it just before its release last week, making it eligible for today’s article, because this is some truly excellent Progressive Metal(core) – sitting somewhere between Devin Townsend at his heaviest and God Forbid at their proggiest – that focuses more on hefty, hammering riffs and moody, brooding hooks than bombastic melody or indulgent technicality.
As a result pretty much every track – from the pneumatic rhythms of “The Soul Beneath” and the gloom-shrouded grooves of the Rannoch-esque “Forgotten Loss”, through the churning riffs and soaring pseudo-symphonics of “The Rot”, to the bleak beauty of “Shrouded” and the humongous hooks of “Roots That Bind” – is built around a colossal core of dense, down-tuned guitars and punishingly precise drums, all topped off with a series of intricate leads and gravel-throated growls (plus the occasional passage of angst-ridden clean vocals).
And while it’s not perfect by any means (both “The Ones That Changed Me” and “Kudzu” succumb to the curse of the Metalcore cliché whenever they push things in too sweetly melodic a direction, if I’m being brutally honest) it’s clear that Interloper have ambitions far beyond being just another easily forgotten flash-in-the-pan, as there’s more than enough depth to their songwriting – which runs the gamut from the riff-driven prog-tinged pounding of “My Time Comes” to the short, sweet, but subtly complex strains of “My Flame Deadened” – to keep even the most closed-minded of listeners coming back for more.
TOWER OF SILENCE – SEMELEAN REVELATIONS
Do you like your Black Metal proggy and unorthodox? If not, that you’ll probably want to give this one a miss… but if you do then I’d advise giving Semelean Revelations, the debut album from French quartet Tower of Silence, a shot ASAP.
These ten tracks – clocking in at a little under an hour in total – showcase a form of complex, technical, and unpredictable Black Metal reminiscent of Krallice, late-90s Dodheimsgard, and mid-period De Profundis (especially when it comes to the nimble-fingered bass work of Sylvain Colon) which juxtaposes abrasive blastbeats and erratic rhythms, seething dissonance and shredding discordance, with passages of proggy weirdness, layers of unsettling ambience, and injections of eerie synths.
It’s a lot to take in, that’s for sure (sometimes, arguably, a little too much) but the likes of unpredictable, constantly mutating opener “Spiritual Starvation”, the unconventional, pseudo-melodic “Oracular Nauseas”, and the gloomily atmospheric strains of “Bellringer” all manage to showcase a slightly different aspect/angle of the band’s sound while still feeling like part of a coherent, carefully crafted whole.
For all their maddening complexity and eccentric extremity, however, the band still maintain a sense of raw, almost desperate, intensity during the likes of “Conflagration” and “City of a Thousand Gates”, which means that by the time that the album’s ambitiously progressive finale, “Celestial Strangling Hole” finally comes to a close you’re likely to feel totally worn out – both mentally and physically – but still ready for another go around.
VITUR – TRANSCENDING THE SELF
Last, but by no means least, we’ve got the debut from Polish Death Metal quartet Vitur, a band whose particular brand of full-force extremity and technical riffosity sits somewhere between the biting belligerence of their countrymen in Dormant Ordeal and the all-or-nothing assault of Hideous Divinity.
But while these guys definitely play hard, and do not pull their punches, across these nine tracks (three of which, to be fair, are scene-setting intro/interlude pieces… but who’s counting?) they’re also not afraid to incorporate a few proggily melodic touches (the second-half of “The Entity”, for example, practically bleeds bleak, brooding melody) or moments of doomy, atmospheric darkness (such as the finale of “Dual Consciousness”) that arguably owe just as much to the more sinister side of Meshuggah as the more zeitgeist-friendly Disso-death scene.
Heck, there’s even a bit of outlandish Archspire-ness to the likes of the hook-laden, high-velocity attack of “Absorbing Liquid” and the precision pummelling of “Only Vacuum Remains” – although Vitur‘s preference for massive riffs and utterly monstrous, down-tuned grooves over ridiculously flashy technicality helps keep them grounded more in the “Death Metal” side of “Technical Death Metal”.
Make no mistake, Vitur have absolutely marked themselves out as “ones to watch” with Transcending the Self… as well as ones to listen to right now, if you know what’s good for you!