(Andy Synn presents another terrific triptych of recent releases from the UK)
We’re only a month into the new year and the UK contingent has already put out several strong releases (including a couple that I’m holding on to for the next edition of this particular series).
All signs, therefore, indicate that this is going to be another healthy year for my home-grown scene, so let’s start as we mean to go on, shall we, with three more examples of “The Best of British”!
(Andy Synn reviews the new album from Knoll, out this Friday)
Riding the hype wave is a lot like surfing, when you think about it.
Sure, you look cool when you’re doing it, and as long as you stay ahead of it you’re all good, but the moment you fall behind the curve… that’s when it overtakes you and drags you down.
And while the prolific (and pretty damn impressive) output of unorthodox American noise-mongers Knoll has, so far at least, helped them ride that wave a long way from their humble beginnings – going from a practically unknown name in 2019 to one that’s been on almost everybody’s lips going into 2024 – it’s basically inevitable that, some day, maybe even some day soon, they’re going to crash out and go under.
But that day is not today.
(DGR reviews the new album from Cognizance, out 26 January on Willowtip Records)
It wasn’t too long ago we were joking about how Cognizance were one of the better bands when it comes to the “riff-avalanche” style of album – the type of disc that generally picks one particular tempo and sticks to it, leaving the band room to just rattle off part-after-part-after-part atop the listener until, by the end of it, they’ve basically been buried underneath a pile of stuff.
It’s a difficult balance to strike because you can easily get lost in your own creativity and create big, overwhelming works that, by their very nature, are hard to maintain any interest in since everything is so ephemeral and fleeting.
And while Cognizance have remained a sleek and ultra-precise machine for over a decade since the release of their first full length – after having subsisted on a series of singles and EPs – they’ve also slowly hammered and forged their sound into something as fiercely creative and memorably groove-ridden as it is terrifyingly technically-proficient.
Their previous album, Upheaval, picked up where Malignant Dominion left off, and I’ll give you three guesses as to where Phantazein picks up as a starting point a little under two and a half years later.
(Andy Synn takes a trip to Infant Island on their new album, Obsidian Wreath)
What’s in a name, they say?
Well, when it comes to genre-names the answer can be… quite a lot, as it happens.
Case in point, depending on what tags I apply to Obsidian Wreath – call it “Screamo”, call it “Blackgaze”, call it “Post-Metal” – your reactions, and your expectations, might be wildly different.
The truth, of course, is that it’s actually a little bit of all these things, equally indebted to the likes of Pg. 99 and Envy as it is latter-day Panopticon and early Deafheaven, with the end result being… well, you’ll just have to read on to find out, won’t you?
(DGR sets out to discover what Vitriol have become on their second album, out next week)
It’s been four years and change since the release of Vitriol‘s stunning full length To Bathe From The Throat Of Cowardice and, save for an EP of re-done/re-approached earlier material from an embryonic form of the band released during the plague years, we haven’t really heard much from them since.
And while there have been other groups in the meantime that have attempted (and sometimes succeeded) to play at the same relentless firestorm level, what makes Vitriol in particular work is the perceived integrity and passion in their music.
You get a sense listening to them that they mean every word that they say and will only stop when whichever vocalist is on the mic runs out of a) space for words or b) breath to utter said words.
But constantly maintaining that level of intensity will, inevitably, burn anybody out… which brings us firmly back around to Vitriol‘s second full length release, because it’s not humanly feasible for a group to exist at that level of intensity all over again… is it?
(Andy Synn has fallen in love with Santacreu‘s recently-released debut album, and hopes you will too)
While we’re still in a slightly odd place here at NCS, what with Islander still being held hostage (by his day job), I’d say that DGR and I have managed to keep the lights on and the content flowing pretty well so far.
And while he’s got his eyes and ears attuned to a few albums coming out next week, I’m looking the other way and highlighting a few albums we missed last week that I think deserve your attention.
Case in point, Cançons d’Amor, Dol i Enyorança is the debut album from cinematic Spanish Post-Metal collective Santacreu, and quite possibly (nay, probably) the first (or, at least, one of the first) albums we’ve ever reviewed sung (and I do mean sung) entirely in Catalan.
It’s a moving, multi-faceted and frequently mesmerising piece of work, from start to finish, and one which should find a lot of favour amongst the more atmospherically and/or melodically inclined of our readers.
(DGR takes on the upcoming new album from Exocrine, out 26 January)
The idea that Exocrine are on their sixth full length release with Legend is one that is mildly eye-popping.
The French Tech Death group have done extremely well for themselves with a very specific formula – one whose sheer violence and velocity is akin to lighting a pallet of Piccolo Pete fireworks all at once and just letting it screech until the neighbors call the cops – that they’ve re-forged and refined time and time again, album after album, but which is still recognizably “them”.
Credit must be given as well to the band for the fact that even as the Tech Death arms race has gone nuclear (and beyond) they’ve always tried to be something more than just a bunch of relentless speed-merchants from the massive slab of headbanging groove which underpinned Molten Giant to their willingness to be completely insane on discs like Maelstrom and The Hybrid Suns, as and when the need arises.
Well, apparently those last two albums weren’t quite big enough to contain all of the band’s insane intensity, and so we have Legend.
(Andy Synn reviews the recently-released new album from mysterious one-man army Ὁπλίτης)
It is, quite frankly, somewhat astonishing how productive Liu Zhenyang, aka Ὁπλίτης, has been since the release of their debut EP in the closing days of 2021.
What’s even more astonishing is that, despite its prolific nature, the quality of their output has never wavered over the course of the subsequent three albums (some might say they’ve only gotten better, in fact).
Each time a new record rears its head part of me expects to be disappointed – surely they can’t maintain this consistent a level of quality, at this rapid a pace, forever – and each time I’m happy to be proven wrong.
And now, barely a year on from the release of their very first full-length, Ὁπλίτης may have already locked down a place on my End of The Year list with their fourth album, Παραμαινομένη.
(It’s the final countdown… of DGR‘s top ten records of 2023)
I feel like I’ve lit a fuse leading to a powder keg with this one because as of this writing I’ve finally sent in the other four chunks of this year end list, meaning I can no longer hide behind lethargy and malaise and actually have something of a deadline to answer to.
I am a fucking idiot.
The final block of albums is going to have a lot of familiar names from years past. As much as I picked on groups for playing it a little too close ot home earlier on in this tome, there were just as many familiar names that did manage to either add something new or excel in a style that they’d been honing for some time.
I don’t think there will be too many shocking choices here or ones out of left field. There’s a solid Grind block, a small chunk of Black Metal – both venom dripping, melodic, and hybridized into something meaner – a wall of Death Metal that you’re likely used to by now and one oddball that I think is basically right in line with my personal aesthetic.
So let’s kick this last bit downhill and see what sort of rubble it picks up along the way.
(Here we are with DGR‘s penultimate post of the week)
Every year these take a lot out of me. I’ve always said that it gets easier as you get closer to the end but this year that hasn’t been the case.
I’ve been terrified to repeat myself and so I comb over this stuff again and again to make sure that you’re not seeing the same turn of phrase to often. I know I’m slowly turning into a sentient jar of mustard as I get older but at the very least I don’t want it super obvious that I don’t language no good more these days.
This block is where a lot of the heavy hitters lay, not in terms of critic-bait or the ones that are shared on a lot of people’s lists – though I’d hazard about half of the bunch here are popping up elsewhere since I am a simpleton – but because the music may be some of the punchier stuff I’ve included thus far.
We’ve also got the much vaunted “watch DGR describe a bunch of music that he lacks the vocabulary to do so!” bit, which is always fun as those have often felt like I’m attempting to ride downhill with a plastic trash can lid as a sled and the amount of control suggested therein.
The party – and the cheap shots at my fellow writers [someone’s forgotten that I have editorial control – Andy] – continues tomorrow and I’ll finally send this damned thing off with coins over its eyes to pay the ferryman.
I’ll see you then. Hopefully.