AB·EST – MOLTEN HUSK

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 232022
 

(Andy Synn has words to share about the new album from Germany’s Ab·est, out now on Monument of Collapse Records)

Here’s a little fact that “they” don’t want you to know… all the very best Sludge/Post-Metal bands (a distinction which, at the apex of both sub-genres, largely dissolves into nothing) are Hardcore bands at their core root.

That’s right, in a scene awash with pretentious Post-Rock pretenders (most of whom seem to think that buying a distortion pedal and learning a few dischords makes them “the future of Metal”) it’s at the uglier, uncompromising end of the spectrum where you’ll mostly find the real gems… and Ab·est are more uncompromising than most.

So strap yourselves in, my friends, this is not going to be an easy ride.

Continue reading »

BLACKBRAID – BLACKBRAID I

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Aug 222022
 

(The highly-anticipated debut album from Native American Black Metal artist Blackbraid is set for release this Friday, and our very own Andy Synn has some deep thoughts to share about it)

Hype… whether it’s the organic, grass-roots, free-range variety, or the artificial, astro-turfed, paid-for by your parents, kind… is a major part of today’s media landscape, whether we like it or not.

It’s not always a bad thing, by any means, but it sometimes becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy where, once a narrative about a band is established by an author or an outlet (or, increasingly, someone with sufficient twitter influence), that becomes the only story that gets any traction.

Case in point, Blackbraid I is not – as some have claimed, and even more have amplified – the “best Black Metal album of the year”, but it is a very good, occasionally unabashedly great, example of how Black Metal can serve as the perfect medium for anyone with a strong enough vision to express themselves.

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ABSTRACTED: “ATMA CONFLUX”

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Aug 222022
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the new album by the Brazilian band Abstracted, which was released by M-Theory Audio this past April.)

It’s hard to remember how I came across Brazil’s Abstracted and their 2022 release Atma Conflux. The best guess would likely be the eye-catching cover art with its hues of blue and green. Cover art has often served as an impetus to looking into a band we probably wouldn’t have crossed paths with, though we are also the sorts who constantly dig around the underground for new music. I’ve dived head-first into releases for dumber reasons, and my review history here is a record of my atrocities.

Atma Conflux is an interesting prospect for Abstracted. Officially, it’s their first full-length but also feels like a new debut overall. Prior to the April release of this album, the band had put out a debut EP called Ophidian in 2015 and since then, a small sprinkling of singles – all of which have found their way onto the album.

With such a time-gap between releases you get the sense that this is a group who’ve spent a long time in the musical forge, working on their songs and playing with what direction they wanted to pursue musically. You also get this idea when you look at Atma Conflux‘s run time, divided up between seven songs and clocking in at nearly an hour and five minutes. If nothing else on Abstracted‘s first full length, they are clearly ambitious as hell. Continue reading »

DUSK: “THE RELIC”

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Aug 222022
 

Amidst a time when industrial black metal regains considerable ground in the urban surroundings of COVID isolation, Costa Rica’s DUSK attempt to offer a peculiar recipe of their long-lost youth. An in-depth review by Axel Stormbreaker.

I always enjoy a good scavenger hunt. It’s tricky, spicy and refreshing in ways that contradict the mundanity of a busy city life. Same reason why I tend to avoid people who don’t like, or even appreciate, the first three chapters of the Indiana Jones film series. They lead lives of stolid mediocrity, yet shall revolt hastily when real change is imminent. They desire excitement, yet feel complacent in the safety of the norm. They don’t quite get it’s not the destination, but the journey itself, that broadens one’s horizon. Especially since everything could become the same bland fare, when provided to one a bit too freely.

All in all, Costa Rica’s Dusk do meet the said criteria of an exciting discovery waiting to be made. Especially when the vast majority of listeners either prefer to stick to the classics, or follow the bands others seem to enjoy. Certain metal labels also do pay attention to trends, or even a band’s country of origin, as their investment requires some ground fertile enough to cultivate a growing fanbase. Add to that how Costa Rica is known to mainstream metal for… basically nothing, and you can’t help but appreciate a (hypothetical) dose of well-concealed sarcasm. Continue reading »

SOILWORK: “ÖVERGIVENHETEN”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 172022
 

(We present DGR‘s considered review of Övergivenheten, the new Soilwork album that’s coming out this Friday, August 19th, via Nuclear Blast.)

Look, an hour and five minutes (plus) is a very long time for an album. Not to put too fine a point on it here, but it’s a very long time for a Soilwork album as well. If you’ve been following the numbers game recently you’ll have noticed that Amon Amarth‘s The Great Heathen Army is not the only 12th album released by a long-running band this year, as Soilwork are also joining that prestigious club with their newest album Övergivenheten.

There’s a lot to be said for Soilwork‘s longevity, as a revolving door of cast members have kept the band lively over the years. Even through up and down periods in the group’s popularity, they’ve always found a way to morph themselves just enough to stay relevant within the modern-day scheme of metal. They have had “eras” as a result, which is a wild thing to say about a band who have always been so built around massive singles in recent years. Continue reading »

BECOMING THE ARCHETYPE – CHILDREN OF THE GREAT EXTINCTION

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Aug 162022
 

(Andy Synn has not forgotten Becoming the Archetype… but will his faith be rewarded?)

Be careful what you wish for… that’s what they say, right?

And, let me tell you, I’ve been wishing and hoping for a new album from Becoming the Archetype ever since the group (at the time a very different entity from the one they started as) disbanded nearly ten years ago.

Well, now it’s finally here, reuniting the core trio of Seth Hecox, Jason Wisdom, and Brent Duckett, for the first time in over a decade, and it’s fallen to me to tell you all about it. And I’m not sure I’m ready.

But I’m going to try my best.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: APHONIC THRENODY, TYRANNOSATAN, AMMANAS

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 152022
 

This is a rare weekday when we have no music premieres on the calendar, and thus I had some uncommitted time to use in sifting through the murky metal flood in search of other shiny nuggets. Coincidentally, it leads to the fifth day in a row when I’ve been able to pull together a round-up of new sights and sounds, creating our own flood. May you keep your nostrils above the tide.

For moi, part of the fun of these exercises is not just the process of making selections but the arranging of them. What comes first, what comes next, how to end? It’s as close as I’ll ever come to being a DJ. I wouldn’t be a very good one in any event, because the idea of enabling people to flow fairly smoothly from one thing to the next in a similar sonicsphere is usually uninteresting to me. Sometimes it’s more fun to create whiplash through abrupt shifts and jarring juxtapositions.

APHONIC THRENODY (International)

Aphonic Threnody never indulge any temptation for half-measures. The immense power of their funeral doom has proven to be unyielding, and so has the volume of the output. This year marks the third in a row to witness a new Aphonic Threnody album, following on the heels of The All Consuming Void and The Great Hatred. Moreover, those two were hour-long records and the one we’ll receive this year — The Loneliest Walk — is a double-album that’s almost 2 1/2 hours long. Continue reading »

BLACK MAGNET: “BODY PROPHECY”

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Aug 152022
 

(We had a torrent of reviews from DGR last week, and we have another one to kick-start this new week. The subject is the second LP from Midwestern US industrial metal outfit Black Magnet, which was released by 20 Buck Spin at the end of July.)

It seems only fitting, given the Author & Punisher and Lament Cityscape reviews that have floated across the site (one of which was the fault of yours truly), that at one point or another we were going to find our way to the doorstep of the industrial project Black Magnet.

The group’s recent album Body Prophecy was released at the tail end of July via 20 Buck Spin and is one of those releases where if you were curious in any sense what sort of music they made, you just had to see that the closing track was a remix by Godflesh‘s Justin Broadrick.

Black Magnet have been around for a few years now, though they are still a newer project, and Body Prophecy represents only the second full-length for the band. Arriving two years after their album Hallucination Scene, Body Prophecy tries hard to refine the band’s sound while also indulging in some hefty hero worship. It’s hard not to draw comparisons throughout the album as Black Magnet leans hard into the electronics-driven side of its sound, augmenting its guitar and hammering drums for something that could draw a wall of comparisons to groups like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and yes, the aforementioned Godflesh. Continue reading »

THE ALGORITHM: “DATA RENAISSANCE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 122022
 

(We’ve reached the end of a week-long series of reviews by DGR (a few more are still coming next week), and in this one he takes us off our usual beaten paths, even if not so unusual for him.)

Sound the air raid siren, it’s the “not heavy metal” alert time. Though there’s no singing either.

Sometimes writing up a disc can feel like an exorcism, especially when it comes to something that isn’t part of the traditional heavy metal sphere. This has been one that has been resting at the back of the brain for a while too, like many that were caught in the MDF-to-NWTF window, a three-week gap that somehow managed to vanish in between festival chaos.

If you’ve read the site for a while you’ll probably recognize the name The Algorithm as an electronic/metal hybrid that has often danced into and out of the worlds of djent and a handful of other styles as the interest has struck founder Remi. The project that has been kicking around for some time, and due to the nature of it always dancing on the fringes of – and often hybridizing – a handful of different genres, every album has always offered a musical adventure, album, so long as your tolerance for varying electronic styles is up there. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INDUSTRIAL PUKE — “INDUSTRIAL PUKE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 112022
 

This is one of those song premieres where it’s tempting for us to just tell you, “Here — listen to this!“, because reading much more than that would probably take you longer than listening to the track. After all, the song barely clips the minute-twenty mark. But writing is what we do, and write we shall, but in a way that might give you a bit more to chew on than our impressions of this one song.

The song in question shares the name of this Swedish band — Industrial Puke — and it’s the one that slams the door shut on their debut EP Where Life Crisis Starts, which is coming out on September 16th via Suicide Records. The EP itself is a swift kick in the jaw, four songs that collectively fight with you for less than eight minutes. And hell yes, it’s a fight. Continue reading »

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