Album Reviews Archives - Page 108 of 545

PORENUT – MISLIVES

Apr 252023

(Andy Synn continues his streak of brilliant Black Metal bands/albums with the “new” one from Porenut)

Some of you may have noticed a trend over the last several weeks, where I’ve almost exclusively written about Black Metal (most frequently erring towards the weirder end of the spectrum too).

Looking ahead, however, I can see a lot more Death Metal and/or Sludge-related content coming down the pipeline, so it looks like I’llbe switching things up sooner, rather than later.

It would be remiss of me, however, not to take this opportunity to write something about the recently-released new album from perennial outsiders Porenut, especially since it happens to be a real dark-horse candidate for best Black Metal album of the year (so far).

SHORT BUT SWEET: DEMONICAL — “INTO VICTORY”

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Apr 242023

(Here we have DGR‘s review of a new EP released by the Swedish band Demonical, which has been out since the end of March on Agonia Records.)

There have been a string of singles and EP releases in the past couple of months and the grouping of them has been all over the place — many consisting of bonus tracks that were on international editions or ultra-exclusive songs, others being odd experiments, and some being the more traditional “yes, we are working hard on new stuff, here’s what we’ve been up to recently”.

Demonical‘s newest EP release is along the lines of the third one, although part of the reason we’re checking in with them is due to Demonical changing vocalists, so its partly that the band are still going (which is good news, given that 2022’s Mass Destroyer was pretty strong) and partly “here’s what we’re going to sound like now” with new vocalist Charlie Fryksell at the helm.

Not to shock anyone, but the two songs present on Into Victory – the title track and a cover of The Ramones‘ “Somebody Put Something In My Drink” that plays it remarkably straight – continue Demonical‘s pattern of being particularly strong and very capable of bringing the earth-rumbling gallop that you come to this style of death metal for. Continue reading »

PORTRAYAL OF GUILT: “DEVIL MUSIC”

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Apr 242023

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of Texan outfit Portrayal of Guilt‘s new album, which is out now via via Run For Cover Records.)

Uncompromising and confrontational are two words that should be used when describing artists who use heavy music as their medium. You read that right. An artist, not a band. The best-case scenario is a band of artists, but when you are talking about a project that takes the kind of sonic risks Portrayal of Guilt does, the conversation turns to an art form.

These Texans do not play by the rules of heavy music, nor do they care. They make cathartic darkness, which is why they are one of my favorite new heavy vehicles of chaos for my ears. Their new album conforms when they feel like it. They used atmosphere and jarring dissonance to paint hellish portraits of inner pain externalized. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DIONE, IDOLOS, THE ARCANE ORDER, DÉMONOS

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Apr 232023

I probably went way overboard with yesterday’s 11-band roundup of new songs and videos. I could have done the same today, but decided to show a little restraint. There’s still a lot of music to be found below, with two complete EPs as well as two advance songs from forthcoming albums.

I’m also happy with the way this came together, because in very different ways (some more adventurous than others) all the music is head-spinning.

DIONE (Poland)

The debut EP of the solo black metal project Dione seemed to appear out of nowhere when it was released yesterday. No previous releases under that name, though M-A does point to its creator’s previous involvement in a few other projects (which themselves don’t have many releases to their credit). This just makes the appeal of the four songs on Cosmosphere even more startling. Continue reading »

CHROME WAVES – EARTH WILL SHED ITS SKIN

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Apr 202023

(Andy Synn continues our long-running relationship with Chicago’s Chrome Waves, whose new album is set for release next week)

It’s crazy, when you think about it, just how long we’ve been writing about Chrome Waves, publishing our very first post about the group – then made up of The Atlas Moth‘s Stavros Giannopolous, ex-Nachtmystium guitarist Jeff Wilson, and former The Gates of Slumber drummer Bob Fouts (RIP) – in December 2011.

And while things have certainly changed quite a bit since then – the group essentially began all over again in 2018, with Wilson and Amiensus vocalist/guitarist James Benson forming the new core of the band’s ever-evolving line-up, which now also features bassist Zion Meager and drummer Garry Naples – we’ve continued to follow their career with both fascination and appreciation aplenty over the years.

But what’s particularly fascinating about their upcoming fourth album, Earth Will Shed Its Skin, is the way in which it attempts to weave the two most distinctive aspects of the band’s sound – the cathartic “Post-Black Metal” side that appeals to fans of Tombs, Deafheaven, and the like, and the shoegaze-y Alt-Rock side that recalls the best of acts like Hum and Catherine Wheel – into a single, coherent whole.

Does it succeed? Or does it shatter under the weight of everything it’s trying to achieve? Let’s find out!

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAEDEOUS — “MALUM SUPPLICIUM”

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Apr 202023

Our first in-depth exposure to the music of the Portuguese symphonic black metal band Caedeous was last year, when we premiered their third album, Obscurus Perpetua. When we did that, we advised listeners “to take your seats and get a firm grip on something solid before embarking on this journey”, because we found the album to be “a dazzling, diabolical, and disorienting trip through the imperiums of Hell”:

“The music is elaborate and unpredictable, theatrical and bombastic, sometimes breathtaking in its splendor but always as scary as your worst nightmares. Fascinating music, to be sure, but also demented and intensely unnerving.”

And now we’re re-connecting with Caedeous just one year later because they’ve made a new album, and once again we’re hosting its full streaming premiere. The name of the new one is Malum Supplicium. Like its two predecessors, it’s a concept album, one that “thematically tells horror stories inspired by Lovecraft, Barker and Alighierie‘s works — the eternal struggle between good and evil, angels and demons, heaven and hell”. Continue reading »

CISZA – SHE YEARNS FOR OTHER WORLDS

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Apr 192023

(Andy Synn breaks his silence on the first full-length album from Poland’s Cisza)

Ok, I promise… this is going to be the last of the Black Metal oddities that I write about for a while.

Probably. Maybe. Almost certainly.

That being said, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass by without writing about Cisza‘s intriguing debut album.

After all, while it may not be as overtly “odd” as most of the releases I’ve covered recently it is, however, a record which certain people are more likely to deny actually is Black Metal, due to the fact that its blend of echoing tremolo melodies and rigid rhythmic patterns errs closer towards the punchy, Post-Black approach of bands like Agrypnie, Downfall of Gaia, and Harakiri for the Sky, than it does anything remotely “trve” or “kvlt”.

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FIAT NOX — “OPIUM TO INSIDIOUS SLUMBER II”

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Apr 172023

In 2021 we had the honor of premiering In Contemptuous Defiance, a new EP by the German black metal band Fiat Nox, which followed their 2021 debut album The Archive of Nightmares. In an accompanying review we wrote that the EP “further elevates the place of Fiat Nox as a band capable of creating marvelously dynamic and multi-faceted music that gets the blood racing with its muscular, hard-charging aggression but also creates wholly enthralling atmosphere through its emotionally powerful melodies”. In Contemptuous Defiance was also home to a song (“Amok Hymn“) that we named to our list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

Allowing no grass to grow beneath their iron-shod hooves, Fiat Nox followed that EP with another one in 2022 — Demanifestation (Hymns of Destruction and Nothingness). Unfolding across three tracks and 30 minutes, it provided a bracing amalgam of blistering and blasting blackened fury, engrossing melodies, and frightening, esoteric atmosphere worthy of the record’s magnificently hellish cover art.

With their creative fires still burning hot, Fiat Nox have readied yet another EP for release later this month. Entitled Opium To Insidious Slumber, it consists of two songs, and today we’re premiering a lyric video for the second of those — “Opium To Insidious Slumber II“. Continue reading »

ALTARI – KRÖFLUELDAR

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Apr 172023

(Andy Synn bathes in the pyroclastic flow of the debut album from Iceland’s Altari)

I promise you, at some point I’ll write about something a little more… normal.

Maybe some stupid, stompy Death Metal or some chunky, chuggy Hardcore. How does that sound?

But, for whatever reason, there’s been so many brilliantly weird and wonderful albums released over the last few months – especially on the Black Metal side of things – which I’ve felt compelled to write about that you’d be forgiven for thinking that we’re in the middle of some sort of renaissance in the field of Avant-Garde extremity (and maybe we are!).

And, providing yet more evidence for this, may I present the debut album from Icelandic iconoclasts Altari.

SHADES OF BLACK: MORIBUND MANTRAS, DACCAR-TCHUV’S CAVE, PINCER CONSORTIUM, NON SERVIAM, ALTAI-SAYAN

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Apr 162023

Moribund Mantras

Humans continue sending cameras into the deepest waters on Earth and continue seeing strange creatures that live there. If those creatures have minds, they may be thinking we should mind our own goddamned business, especially the two snailfish that were physically caught in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench last September at a depth of 8.022 meters (just under five miles below sea level). Even the snailfish that were only videoed at a depth of 8,336 meters, making them the deepest fish ever captured on film, might have felt annoyed. (The film was released earlier this month, reported here.)

But the snailfish aren’t the deepest sea creatures discovered so far. There’s an octopus that’s been found at an estimated 9,800 meters below sea level in the Marianas Trench. And the deepest part of the Marianas Trench measured so far (the deepest surveyed point of all the Earth’s oceans) is 10,971 meters (6.817 miles) below the water’s surface. There’s probably life down there too — we just don’t yet have the technology to go look.

Why the hell am I sharing this info here? It’s because I’ve been thinking about the allure of oddities (for want of a better term). Life-forms found at depths once thought unsurvivable bear resemblances to creatures that dwell far closer to the surface, but their appearance has been twisted in unusual and often frightening ways as they adapted through evolution in their epochal descents. Their strange fascinations lead us to keep searching for them, and to attempt to comprehend how they have survived.

Some (but not all) of today’s music bears resemblances to more familiar forms of black and blackened metal, but it is also twisted into unusual and sometimes frightening shapes. Searching for such oddities is one of our pastimes, because the results can be fascinating. (The risk of operating in a blog where there’s no one telling you what to do is that it permits strained analogies that consume a lot of space.) Continue reading »

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