(written by Islander)
I spent some time this weekend trying to figure out what I should add to this list after the three segments I’ve planned for the first three days of this week, which is as far as I’ve gotten. I thought I ought to pay more attention to songs from albums that didn’t make any of our year-end lists, and albums we didn’t even review, and songs I didn’t comment about in weekend roundups. I have a lot of listening ahead of me.
But today’s choices are all from albums we paid attention to in print last year. They were all on my radar back in late December when I started mapping out the first two weeks of this January rollout. They are all from albums we reviewed and that rightly received their fair share of acclaim during YE list season.
TOMBS
In his reviews of Tombs’ new album Feral Darkness Andy Synn opined that in their last couple of preceding albums “the band still hadn’t quite found the right way to organically integrate all their different influences and impulses.” And then he continued:
“That’s not a problem this time around, however, as the album’s sinuous flow between blistering, blackened blastery and swaggering, sludgy groove – augmented by touches of gloomy gothic glamour and moody Post-Punk melancholy that manifest in subtle layers of simmering synths and eerie ambient electronics barely perceptible to the human ear on first listen – suggests that the group have finally found the balance they’ve been searching for… and finally fulfilled the full promise of their long-gestating evolution.”
Like Andy (and many others), I thoroughly enjoyed Feral Darkness and got hooked on many of the songs. The one I picked for this list, which is a choice that’s really more a way of exemplifying the album’s immediate catchiness and enduring appeal than a prize for the No. 1 song, is the title track.
It does indeed sound like feral darkness, and it rocks hard. Heavy in the low end, dirty in the riffing, and savage in the snarls, the song is a beastly menace. Sitting still while listening to this slugger isn’t an option, especially when the throbbing chugs and ghostly wails come out in the song’s back half.
https://tombscult.bandcamp.com/album/feral-darkness
https://www.tombscult.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TombsBklyn/
VACUOUS
Wil Cifer penned the review we published of the new Vacuous album last year (he also put it at No. 8 on his YE list). He concluded the review with this paragraph, which underscored the main thrust of his write-up for In His Blood:
This album has created a standard of originality against which death metal releases this year should be measured. It’s an example of how to be true to the spirit of the death metal genre without becoming a tribute band to your influences, and is one of those albums you can let play on repeat for an entire afternoon.
Among the YE lists we posted, In His Blood also landed on the picks by our writer Chile. Here’s part of what he wrote:
Distinctiveness on In His Blood occurs primarily through the band’s willingness to push themselves to previously unexplored spaces coupled with some of the strongest songwriting on a death metal record this year. As always, the best way to evidence this is with the music itself, so just go and marvel at the eerily addicting “Hunger” or the total suffocating darkness of “Contraband”.
As it happens, “Contraband” is my next addition to this song list, very narrowly winning out in my head over the also-mentioned “Hunger“.
Lots of things about this song get their malformed claws in a listener’s head. It insidiously (and infectiously) pulsates in various ways, from the eerie opening notes to the slashing and squirming riffage, which tonally sits between a growl and a whine. The rhythmic grooves are also irresistible, thanks to big thudding and clanging bass-lines and reptile-brain back-beats.
The song’s weird opening electronic pulsations never completely go away until near the song’s final minute, when it transforms into a maniacal, blast-driven churn in which the tremolo’d guitars viciously rise and miserably fall, like a frothy tide of effluent and gore.
Even the stupendously ghastly and gruesomely ravenous vocals have staying power. It’s such a creepy, corrosive, and primally compelling song… and quite worthy of this list.
https://orcd.co/vacuous-inhisblood
https://linktr.ee/vacuousdeath
https://www.facebook.com/vacuousdeath
CLAIRVOYANCE
And finally for today, a song from one more album we spotlighted in a review and in YE lists at our site — Chasm of Immurement, the debut album from the Polish death-dealing quintet Clairvoyance. I’ll excerpt from what Daniel Barkasi wrote about it last August:
It’s thankfully been a good year thus far for death metal, with a healthy number of acts creating memorable and impactful records that stand tall amongst a crowded field of copycats and listless drivel. Clairvoyance flaunts a sinister sound with a confident swagger that pays homage to the best legacy acts, but adds their own touch to make it their own. Moreover, they have a knack for crafting songs that stick in the memory and provide those moments that keep you coming back. Chasm of Immurement is a divine smattering of dirty, caustic death metal that doesn’t let up.
I should add (because if I don’t, he will) that our pal SurgicalBrute included the album on his YE list, and wrote: “Riff-heavy, primitive death metal with a nasty production and chugging, doom riffs. If there was one death metal album made just for me this year, it’s this one. If the opening track doesn’t make the most infectious songs list, I quit.”
Here at NCS we have a policy against yielding to extortionate threats or negotiating with terrorists, but I happen to agree that the album opener “Eternal Blaze” belongs on this song list. I applauded it back when I first heard it last June:
“Eternal Blaze” deploys poisonously slithering and jubilantly demented fretwork executed at tremolo’d speed, lots of dynamically cavorting drumwork, noxious abyssal gutturals, and a few doses of massive piledriver blows for good measure. Prior to a finale of berserk frenzy, the band also downshift the tempo in order to drag listeners through a musical trough of congealing viscera (with frenzied maggot swarms down in there with you). Ugly and exhilarating stuff for sure.
https://carbonizedrecords.bandcamp.com/album/chasm-of-immurement
https://www.facebook.com/clairvoyancedeathmetal/