(Andy Synn presents another round-up of things from last month you may have missed)
Was October the busiest month in Metal so far this year?
Well, the jury’s still out on that one, but it definitely left me with so many options for this edition of “Things You May Have Missed” – including Black Royal, Coal & Crayon, The Curse Made Flesh, Dethroned, Detresse, Dread Witch, Hatalom, Hope Collapse, Litost, Minenfeld, Sneglefeber, Throes, Urarv, and Veret – that I might just have to do a another one of these articles next week, because four really isn’t a big enough number to even scratch the surface of what I want to recommend to you all from last month.
With that in mind then, let’s not waste any more time and get right to my first batch of recommendations.
AMBRETTA – SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE
Let’s kick things off with something all the way from the very start of October, shall we?
The debut album from Arizona crew Ambretta is eight tracks – well, seven and one ear-scraping primer of an intro – of vicious, scalding screamo, whose harshly blackened edges and lurching passages of sludgy groove (plus the occasional moment of moody clarity) make them doubly-perfect for fans of bands like Ostraca, Lagrimas, and Portrayal of Guilt.
What’s most striking about this record is just how well the band have channelled their abrasive intensity and raw emotional heft into their sound, with the likes of the jagged, bone-jarring “Given & Taken” and the face-melting, fire-breathing “Corruption” feeling less like calculated compositions and more like spontaneous explosions of anguish and aggression that just happen, luckily for all of us, to have been recorded.
That’s not to say there’s no space or dynamic to the group’s sound – the aforementioned “Given & Taken” and the heart-wrenching, ear-scraping “Anathema” make sure to provide some welcome passages of bleak, brooding melody amidst all the caustic distortion and cathartic, throat-ripping vocals – but it’s clear that the primary purpose of Something Has to Change is to deliver as visceral, as venomous, and as violent a musical experience as possible, to ensure that no-one who hears it ever forgets the name Ambretta.
And, trust me, songs like the frantic, frenzied attack of “Gray Matter” (which is, amongst other things, a real showcase for guitarist Rece Zimmeht’s impressive abilities), the howling vocals and heaving guitars of “Vain” (bass-wielding banshee Kayli DeLeo providing both the former and the song’s chunky, juddering low-end) and the punishing penultimate burst of Screamo, Grind, and Post-Metal that is “Ballads of the Herons”, aren’t going to be something you’re likely to forget any time soon!
DAEMOGOG – MANIFEST PULSING SEQUELAE
Now we’re going to go from something released at the very beginning of the month… to something that came out at the very end of October… but that’s not the only thing that differentiates these two albums (I mean, this one is Canadian, after all).
Coming some four years after Daemogog‘s last slab of dissonant, soul-crushing darkness, Manifest Pulsing Sequelae is somehow even darker still, it’s dense, gravity-distorting guitars and booming, black-hole bass work – the latter of which has taken on an even more prominent position in the album’s overall sound this time around (not that previous albums were exactly shy about pushing the twisted, low-end twang of the bass by any means) – recalling the best (and most brutal) bits of bands like Artificial Brain, Afterbirth, and latter-day Disentomb.
But for all that …Sequelae is a terrifying monster of malevolent discordance and monstrous, almost inhuman, gutturals (both of which are on full display during the churning discordance and chugging anti-grooves of opener “Seven Portals; Sixteen Aspects”) there’s a steely-eyed method to its monstrosity, which manifests itself most obviously in the moments of moments of abyssal ambience and sinister pseudo-melody which permeate the likes of “Fractal Burden” and “Refractory Replication” (respectively).
It’s the colossal scale and avant-garde ambitions of the latter track (which clocks in at a shuddering, shape-shifting seven minutes and forty-four seconds) and the even more complex and contorted strains of the tongue-twistingly titled “Amniotic Biotope Death Glint Phenomena” which really demonstrate the extent to which Daemogog‘s sound has metastisized since their last album, expanding the scope and scale of the project’s increasingly dark and discordant approach without losing its ability to shock and surprise with just how nasty and non-euclidean it can be.
MACOCHA – PALE HEART
As you all know, one of our great passions here at NoCleanSinging is discovering, and covering, new bands we think might have been overlooked elsewhere.
Case in point, the eight blazing tracks of blistering Blackened Hardcore – think the heaviness and aggression of Ancst and Black Breath combined with the electrifying intensity and anthemic energy of Der Weg Einer Freiheit and modern day Necrophobic – that make up Pale Heart, the debut album from Czech quartet Macocha, have been getting regular repeat play here over the last few weeks, so I felt it was about time to share them with the rest of you (if you haven’t already encountered them independently, that is).
From the chunky chugs and twisting tremolo runs of “Idiocracy” and the massive, heaving guitars of “Pale Heart”, through the seething blastbeats and scorching melodic hooks of “Breathe” (which should make those Necrophobic comparisons make more sense) and the gloom-laden, Wolvhammer-esque grooves of “Till the Darkness Takes Me”, to the infectious rhythmic riffs of “Punch the Clock” and the captivating combo of sonic savagery and melodic menace that is killer closer “Requiem for the World”, Pale Heart delivers banger after banger after banger, showing no quarter and pulling no punches along the way.
And while the punishing weight of the band’s sound is never in question – the tightly-wound bass and guitar tones are particularly heavy throughout – neither is the impressively catchy nature of their songwriting (“Garden of Eyes”, for example, is likely to become a serious earworm) or their ability to weave some seriously stark dynamics and desolate atmospherics (“Here Be Lions” immediately springs to mind) into their music to accentuate the album’s dark, unflinching nature.
Make no mistake, this is one of the best debut albums I’ve heard this year… and hopefully at least some of you will feel the same.
SHEDFROMTHEBODY – WE FLY INTO WINDOWS
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the works of prolific Doomgaze chanteuse Suvi Savikko, aka Shedfromthebody, and have been ever since I accidentally stumbled across their first album back in 2020.
That being said, I was a little mixed on their most recent stuff – I liked Whisper & Wane a lot, but found Everything Out There Has Teeth to be a little disjointed and directionless when compared to the rest of their back-catalogue – and so approached We Fly Into Windows with a little more caution than usual.
Thankfully the gorgeous shudder and shimmer of “Doe” immediately makes it clear that any dissatisfaction I may have experienced last year was merely a passing blip, as the song quickly recaptures that classic melodic/metallic/atmospheric magic which first drew me to Shedfromthebody in the first place, echoing the brooding beauty of artists like Junius, Deftones and Chelsea Wolfe, but this time with an extra dose of dreamlike haze that also recalls latter-day Lantlôs post-Melting Sun.
This latter comparison is even more apparent during the likes of “God Biter” and “All Hands”, both of which showcase the album’s greater focus on late 90s/early 00s era Shoegaze and Alt-Metal vibes, capturing a sort of haunting melancholy that hypnotises, rather than anaesthetises, as it lulls your senses into an almost trance-like state with every ethereal ebb and simmering swell.
That’s not to say, however, that We Fly Into Windows has completely sacrificed its distinctive sense of seductive sonic weight – both the Deftones-esque “Dawn Lung” and the Slow Crush style second half of “Hammer” (which also showcases the clever interplay between guitars, drums, and synths) possess a powerful, if restrained, auditory presence more than equal to anything the project has produced before – but what really makes it work, and potentially a highlight of Shedfromthebody‘s discography so far, is just how well the intelligent interweaving of all these different tones, textures, and genres serves to maximise all their best aspects and elements in turn.