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 »

THE HALO EFFECT – DAYS OF THE LOST

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Aug 112022
 

(Andy Synn gets to grips with the debut album from Melodeath “supergroup” The Halo Effect)

Let’s face it, a lot of people aren’t going to be able to resist pitting the upcoming albums from In Flames and The Halo Effect against one another.

And while that’s understandable to an extent – after all, most (arguably all, if you count Mikael Stanne’s early stint filling in on vocals) of The Halo Effect actually used to be in In Flames – any attempt to position them in direct competition to one another completely misses the point of why this band exists in the first place.

Let’s face it, while the current incarnation of In Flames are essentially a franchise unto themselves – with all the external and internal pressures to produce “hits” which that entails – The Halo Effect is, for all intents and purposes, just five old friends getting together to jam out some tunes that hew a little closer to their roots (though how closely is certainly up for debate).

But while this means that the pressures and expectations surrounding the release of Days of the Lost may not be quite as overbearing, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any expectations riding on it at all… and it’s up to Iwers, Engelin, Svensson, Strömblad, and Stanne to prove that they’ve got more to offer here than just a fleeting hit of feel-good nostalgia.

Continue reading »

WEREWOLVES: “DEATHMETAL” AND “FROM THE CAVE TO THE GRAVE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 112022
 


Photographer credit: Rob Brens

(We continue our week-long series of reviews wherein DGR is doing a lot of catching up, and today he tackles not one but two 2022 releases by the same band, the Australian extremists in Werewolves.)

I get the sneaking suspicion that Werewolves‘ style of music works fantastically well for each person one time and after that it’s a little bit more give and take. Your first album with them is the revelation of how gloriously stupid and how intentionally so the Werewolves‘ brand of music is, and then once that becomes the high mark, everything is a little bit more even-keeled in spite how teeth-gnashing and vicious things may appear from there out.

For me, it was the group’s 2021 album What A Time To Be Alive, which was basically an album of deathgrind front-to-back with almost no chance to breathe. It was an album that basically felt ‘needed’ when it landed with, even if the overall approach was one-note as all hell.

Werewolves have achieved a rapid clip in terms of releasing music as well, essentially going year-over-year since the release of their debut album The Dead Are Screaming. 2022 alone has brought us the release of their latest album From The Cave To The Grave as well as a four-song EP simply called Deathmetal. We’re late to the bus on both, so this rumination needed to cover both releases, but that sure as hell isn’t going to stop us now. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BLASTED HEATH — “VELA”

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Aug 102022
 

“Vela is a blast of blackened chaos from distant galaxies, mastered by death metal legend Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity, Bloodbath). Imagine early Bathory mixed with Darkthrone’s grim eclecticism and Black Breath‘s punk grime. Mutate that sound with Lovecraftian psychedelia and you get this unforgettable album.”

That’s the PR come-on from Wise Blood Records for the debut album by Blasted Heath from Indianapolis. I thought, if that’s even pretty close to accurate I’m going to be very happy with this one. The preview checks a lot of the right boxes for my tastes. Another one got checked when I read guitarist/vocalist Kyle Shumaker‘s comments about the last three conceptually linked songs on Vela, which are about neutron stars (aka pulsars) and “Killanova” events in which two such stars in a binary system collide and potentially release “strange matter”.

And then there’s the fact that the band named the album itself for a pulsar that’s the remnant of a supernova that occurred 11,000–12,300 years ago, and the brightest pulsar (at radio frequencies) in the sky.

So, lots of reasons to be intrigued and attracted before hearing a single note. But, as always, it comes down to the payoff: Do these black/thrash cosmonauts deliver what’s promised? You’re about to find out. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: TOMBS — “EX OBLIVION”

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Aug 102022
 

(We continue a week-long run of reviews by DGR, and this one takes stock of the latest release by the always-interesting NY crew Tombs.)

Tombs have made a name for themselves as more than just a black metal collective out of the East Coast. Whether through the rotating cast of band members or influences pulled from all around the underground scene, Mike Hill and gang have absorbed a lot more into their sound, evolving Tombs past a post-metal/black metal hybrid and into an art collective where you never fully know what to expect next.

Tombs have kept busy as well, especially in recent years, because, save for 2019, every year has seen some sort of release from them, whether it be an EP, full-length, compilation, or a single. There’s always something to keep them out there and show that maybe the constant refresh works for them.

Mid-June of 2022 saw the release of the latest addition to the group’s collective musical works with the EP Ex Oblivion, which contains one new song, one ambient block of experimentation, a remix/housewrecking of a track from Under Sullen Skies, and two cover tracks – for a combined total of three cover songs within the last year, if you caught their cover of Samhain‘s “The Shift” in 2021 – for twenty-two minutes of music. Continue reading »

ETHER COVEN – THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE HAMMER AND THE NAIL

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 092022
 

(Andy Synn gets filthy and furious with the new album from Floridian sludge-slingers Ether Coven)

What makes a band “big” these days?

Is it album sales? Streaming numbers? Social media reach?

Maybe, you might think, it’s being on a “big” label… but if that’s the case then why are Ether Coven, currently signed to Century Media/Good Fight, such a relatively unknown and firmly underground phenomenon?

The answer, of course, is that the band’s music is so unflinchingly ugly, so unforgivingly abrasive (yet tempered with moments of bleak, brooding beauty) that, no matter who they signed with, they were always going to be something of an acquired taste.

But while Ether Coven might not be “big” in the conventional sense of the word, there’s no denying that The Relationship Between the Hammer and the Nail is anything less than an absolutely massive album.

Continue reading »

AMON AMARTH: “THE GREAT HEATHEN ARMY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 092022
 

(DGR has finally gotten around to reviewing the latest album by Amon Amarth, which was released last Friday by Metal Blade Records.)

While digging around in old files and folders I came across the old draft of my review for Amon Amarth‘s Berzerker, wherein the opening line – since scratched – was ‘fuck it, let’s do this’.

Even then, and especially around the release of Amon Amarth‘s Jomsviking album, it had become clear that the band that I’ve long referred to as one of a small handful of fantastic shuffle bands in the world were getting to be huge and had started to ascend in their career to the point of becoming more spectacle than music.

That’s fine but it just represents a shift in priority for seeing them live, much in the same way one might see Kiss, Iron Maiden, Gwar, or Tool. Yeah, you get a bonus and it feels great actually knowing the music, but you really don’t need to any more, because the band have become a spectacle to witness. The recent release of Amon Amarth‘s 12th album The Great Heathen Army hammers this fact home. Instead of Amon Amarth being the super-heavy melodeath-skirting Viking pillagers, they’ve become a spectacle themselves. Fewer runes and gravesites and a whole lot more medieval times.

However, since I’ve been the one to write about Amon Amarth releases here for a while now – though I skipped Jomsviking – l felt weirdly drawn to The Great Heathen Army. The traveling show that is Amon Amarth doesn’t really need our corner of the internet much these days, but there’s some amusing stuff happening within this album, so as the old draft for Berzerker said ages ago,

Fuck it, let’s do this. Continue reading »

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