(Andy Synn has four suggestions, taken from a long list, of stuff to check out from August)
August was a busy month for me, for a lot of different reasons, which is why it feels like I missed out on covering a lot of artists/albums I normally would have made/found more time for.
Those artists include – but are not limited to – Arrows (though at least Islander was able to give that a bit of a write-up), Innumerable Forms (hopefully someone will get to that?), Lowheaven (which I wish I had more space for… but Slow Crush took their slot in the end), Pilgrimage, Ethereal Wound (which I’m more and more gutted not to be including), Spire of Lazarus, Hexrot, and Porenut (whose new album I still might review, possibly next week) amongst many, many more, so I encourage you all to go check them out if/when you have time after reading this article.
AMPHISBAENA – RIFT
Let’s kick things off with something nasty – yet also surprisingly nuanced – shall we?
Comprising seven tracks of doom-laden, subtly discordant Black/Death Metal, the debut album from Canada’s Amphisbaena treads a similar path (not surprisingly, considering its members) to that of Rites of Thy Degringolade, Weapon, Mitochondrion, etc, but puts a gloomier, more atmospheric spin on things which gives it a less overtly aggressive, but significantly more unsettling, vibe.
The opening title track (split into three parts sub-titled “Wading the Deserts of Earth”, “Opening of the Eye”, and “Ruinous Godlike Simulacra”), for example, serves as a perfect primer for the album’s overall dynamic, building from a moody, minimalist introduction into a disgustingly doomy progression of oddly contorted, eight-string guitar chords and grim, guttural utterances, only to then pull back entirely to allow the brooding atmospherics of the music to take centre stage, before finally erupting in a veritable torrent of blastbeat-driven venom and dissonance-laced vitriol.
It’s an ugly, uncompromising sound, that’s for sure, but it’s ultimately the juxtaposition of this ugliness with moments of bleak beauty and sinister melody – “Scaled Ekpyrotic Splinters” in particular is as melodious as it is utterly monstrous, while there’s something both incredibly disturbing yet irresistibly compelling about the contorted chaos of “Exponentially Falling… Upward” – which makes Rift such a fascinating, fundamentally unpredictable, album at its heart.
Sure, the relatively trim, thirty-minute run-time does feel a little unsatisfying after a few listens – there’s definitely room here for the band to expand both their oppressively metallic and ominously ambient ambitions (haunting closer “Congress with the Void” in particular still has a lot of untapped potential, in my opinion) – but you shouldn’t let that prevent you from enjoying, or enduring, this musical journey into the abyss again and again.
OLD MACHINES – THE CYCLES OF EXTINCTION
Look, the Metal community can be a very nerdy one at times… and that’s nothing to be ashamed of (I have been accused of a bit of nerdery here and there myself over the years).
That being said, bands basing their concept(s) around video games (or manga, such as the new one from Ethereal Wound) often leave me a little cold and uninterestd.
Thankfully, however, the “inspired by Mass Effect” narrative underpinning The Cycles of Extinction (the debut album from Oregon-based symphonic extremophiles Old Machines) is just legally-distinctive enough to sneak past my usual defences and hit those some buttons which have previously been triggered by the likes of Bal-Sagoth, Lascaille’s Shroud, and Azure Emote (whose Synn Report you really should check out).
Now, obviously, at just over an hour in length (double that of the previous entry in this article, in fact) I’m not going to have time to cover everything that happens over the course of this album… but, thankfully, opener “Twilight Of The Old Gods, And The Dawning Of The First” is a pretty good example of what Old Machines are all about in microcosm (though there’s nothing really “micro” about the track, either in its eleven minute run-time or its unashamedly OTT sound).
Comprising (melo)dramatic layers of sci-fi keyboards, punishing passages of appropriately machine-like blastbeats, salvos of scything tremolo riffs and an undulating undercurrent of indulgently proggy bass-work – all topped off with an array of shrieks, screams, snarls and scene-setting spoken-word vocals – it walks a fine line between brutally bombastic and shamelessly self-indulgent, and chances are that for every person put-off by its willing embrace of outlandish excess another two will find themselves unable to put it down.
And that, pretty much, goes for the entire album… sure, there’s the occasional track which misses the mark (track #4, “Dark Space and Beyond”, in particular doesn’t add much to the record if I’m going to be brutally honest), but high-velocity hits like “Crescendo of Carnage” and “The Sundering of the Irradiated Sons” more than make up for the occasional misfire!
SLOW CRUSH – THIRST
As ashamed as I am that I wasn’t able to cover Slow Crush‘s new album in advance of its release – especially considering how much I enjoyed their last album – those extra few days have really given me an opportunity to immerse myself in the music (which is always a plus when it comes to this type of layered, atmospherically-textured Post-Rock/Metal/’gaze).
Compared to its predecessor, Thirst is… well, I don’t want to use the word “heavier” (even though it probably is) since that might give you the wrong sense of what the album is going for… let’s just call it “bigger”, the guitars (and bass) making their presence known a little more strongly, and “bolder” in the way it deploys its gleaming hooks and pulsing rhythms.
The opening title track, for example, doesn’t take long to introduce (or reintroduce) you to the album’s deeper sonic layering and richer, more potent drum sound (all topped off, as always, with Isa Holliday’s crooning, calming vocals) in a manner which will doubtless appeal to fans of the (fantastic) new Deftones album (which is a high compliment, in case you were wondering).
But while Thirst is (arguably) a bolder, more bombastic album than Hush (which still had its moments, don’t get me wrong) that doesn’t mean that the band have abandoned their poppier proclivities (in a slightly different world “Covet” could probably be a minor radio smash) or their love of a charismatic Post-Rock crescendo (“Cherry” has a doozy of one just after the bridge), it’s just that there’s now a little bit more power (possibly/partially due to the addition of new guitarist Nic Placklé) and presence under the hood this time around.
I’ll grant you this… occasionally the album’s sublimely smooth delivery means it’s not always easy to discern the edges of certain songs, and there’s the occasional number (mostly those that rely solely on the more ambient side of the band’s sound) which just goes straight in one ear and out the other, but highlights like the simmering, shimmering, soaring “While You Dream Vividly” and cathartic closer “Hlýtt” (which balances its haunting melodic overtones with a dash of something a little harsher at the end) serve as a perfect reminder of just how good Slow Crush can be (and are) at their best.
VICTIM OF FIRE – THE OLD LIE
As much as we love weird, boundary-pushing, avant-garde extremity here at NoCleanSinging… what we really love is RIFFS.
And, boy howdy, do Colorado-based Victim of Fire bring the riffs on the nine songs of killer “Stadium Crust” (which basically means Crust Punk + Melodic Death Metal + classic Metalcore… think the likes of Iskra and Martyrdöd crossed with early Darkest Hour and/or Light This City) that make up The Old Lie.
It’s not just the riffs that make this one so fun though – much as the strafing, string-skipping riffs and raggedly melodic tremolo runs of the opening title-track burst out of the speakers with an energy and exuberance that’s difficult, if not impossible, to resist – it’s the overall and unashamed hookiness of the music, from the neck-wrecking barrage of blastbeats and d-beats which propels “Apocalyptic Inclination” to the showboating lead-guitar licks of “Wayward Light” to the glass-chewing vocals of “Nightmares of Ceasefire” (whose title you’ll likely be screaming along to, if only in your head, every single time).
That doesn’t mean the band have “sold out” on their third album (the aforementioned “Wayward Light”, for example, offsets its more melodic touches with an eye-popping level of aggression, while the fantastically-named “Front Towards Enemy” is two minutes and forty seconds of pure spite and savagery) it’s more that they’ve refined and streamlined their songwriting skills just that little bit more (while still finding space for more introspective moments like the moody mid-section of “Apocalyptic Inclination”, the sombre acoustic outro of “Soldiers Dream”, or the touches of almost Post-Metal style atmosphere during closer “Disharmonist”).
Sure, I still feel like the vocals are way too buried in the mix (you’ll get used to it, I promise, but it’s a little off-putting at first) but that’s probably my one and only criticism (ok, the cover of “Aces High” is another one) of an album I am sure to be coming back to a lot this year.