Album Reviews Archives - Page 143 of 545

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Apr 052022

(Andy Synn is back with another quartet of albums which may have flown under your radar last month)

March of 2022 certainly seemed to be a busy month for new releases, that’s for sure.

But, then, aren’t they all?

What I think made last month feel like a particularly packed one, however, is the fact that the last week or so was especially stacked with new albums – quite a few of which came as complete surprises to me – that it made the whole thing seem that much more overwhelming.

Obviously, of course, I won’t be able to cover all – or even a significant fraction – of them here in today’s article but I still think you’ll be pleased with what I’ve chosen to highlight (and I may or may not have also slipped one from last month into tomorrow’s piece too) as what I’m about to present you with is four different flavours of deathly delights drawn from across the Death Metal spectrum, most, if not all, of which will likely be totally new to a lot of you.

So let’s not waste any more time, shall we?

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BURIAL CURSE — “BURIAL CURSE”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Apr 052022

The well-educated among you may say, “How is this a premiere? That Burial Curse EP came out in June 2021!” And so it did, both digitally and in a very limited run of tapes via Famine Records.

But the beast that was that EP refused to slink away into silence and instead continued to snarl and roar in such violating fashion that Dawnbreed Records picked it up for a reissue that will happen on April 8th in multiple formats. Not only that, the EP has had an upgrade in sound, thanks to a new mix and master by Alex from Obscured By Evil Productions.

So if you haven’t heard the EP before now, it’s a good time to discover it. And if you have heard it, you might now hear it in a way you haven’t before. Continue reading »

DARK FUNERAL: “WE ARE THE APOCALYPSE”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Apr 052022

(On March 18th Century Media released a new album by Dark Funeral, and today DGR gives it a review.)

Again, I preface this every time by saying I am not the black metal expert on this site. This is just one of those releases where it’s fun to check in on a more established band and find out that yes, in fact, they do still have “it”.

Let us tell you a tale of an album in Swedish black metal group Dark Funeral‘s discography. It is nine songs long, about forty-five minutes in length, and has cover art that’s almost entirely blue-dominated. It’s hard to overstate just how much it seems like 2016’s Where Shadows Forever Reign has become the nucleus for Dark Funeral as they exist currently. Credit to them of course; they’ve had a constantly shifting lineup throughout the years, so much so that Dark Funeral releases rarely share the same lineup between them.

WIth Lord Ahriman being the sole constant, people rotate in and people rotate out, yet Dark Funeral somehow keep chugging along with a new album every six-or-so years. You don’t get to do something like that musically unless you’ve remained remarkably steadfast in your sound, which brings us to Dark Funeral‘s newest release, 2022’s We Are The Apocalypse. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABHORRENT EXPANSE — “GATEWAYS TO RESPLENDENCE”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Apr 042022

I confess that when I first read that all 10 tracks on the debut album of Abhorrent Expanse were improvised live, my reaction was one of “uh oh” anxiety mixed with intrigue. Improvisational music of any genre tends to be a mixed bag, but improvisational death metal? Maybe even riskier than usual.

On the other hand, the fact that this band’s members hail from such groups as Zebulon Pike, Celestiial, Obsequiae, and more, well that’s what kindled the intrigue, and even a rising feeling of optimism.

So what won out in the end? The pessimism born of being subjected to other unsuccessful experiments that proved to be un-entertaining exercises in musician self-indulgence? Or the intriguing hope that Gateways To Resplendence might live up to its name?

I suppose the answer is evident from the fact that you’re now reading this, and are about to have a chance to listen to all 10 tracks at this site before the album’s April 8 release through Amalgam Music and Lurker Bias. Why did the optimism prove to be justified? Read on…. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MROME — “BARBARIC VALUES”

Album Reviews, Premieres 4 Responses »

Apr 042022

Here at this site we haven’t paid nearly enough attention to the Polish band MROME. Even after marveling in print at their 2018 second album Noetic Collision on the Roof of Hell, we said not a word about their next full-length, Leech Ghetto, which dropped in 2019, nor did we notice their debut album, 2016’s The Basement Sophisma.

Well, they have no use for record labels and they don’t work with a PR machine. They don’t tour and they’re uninterested in promo photos or social media. In their own words, they exist “to say FUCK YOU to messengers of dread and obedience”, and do this by making concept albums in which the music, the words, and the graphics are interrelated.

Metal-Archives labels them “Thrash Metal”, which is like calling a cut and polished emerald “a greenish mineral”. Yes, they’ve been known to thrash, but their musical evolution has turned them into something that’s significantly more multi-faceted. Even in the case of that 2018 album, we dropped references to Hail Spirit Noir, Mantar, and “infernal death rock” (not “deathrock”). Their newest album Barbaric Values, which drops today, is even tougher to pigeon-hole. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, MARCH 2022

Album Reviews 4 Responses »

Apr 012022

Falls of Rauros

(We’ve reached the end of another month, and thus Gonzo has surfaced with another edition of this column, focusing here on five releases from March 2022.)

I recently made the somewhat ill-advised decision to take a road trip to my old stompin’ grounds of Seattle from my Denver abode. For those not familiar with the length of the trek, it’s about 21 hours by car. Flying out was definitely an option, but there’s always something uniquely appealing about pointing your car in one direction and flooring it for hours on end. If we’re speaking honestly, it’s downright therapeutic.

The “ill-advised” part of the equation came into account when driving through northern Wyoming and Montana. March is not what you’d call a calm month in terms of weather, and there were a couple of parts along desolate highways in which I was white knuckling my way through a snowstorm. There was madness in every direction. Unfettered chaos was all there was for hundreds of miles; one Subaru was a drop in the bucket amid endless 18-wheelers and highway patrol cars.

The good part about all this? I got plenty of time to delve into every album I’d been putting off for a while, and even got surprised by some other stuff I stumbled into. Continue reading »

SEER: OUR PREMIERE OF “LUNAR GATEWAYS” AND OUR REVIEW OF THE “VOL. 7” EP

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Mar 312022

We’ve been closely following the expansive musical odyssey of Vancouver-based Seer from their first release in 2015, writing about that first EP and everything that has followed since then. It’s been a fascinating trip, because the band’s sound has continually evolved and because even the tracks on a single release have never all sounded the same.

From the start Seer have followed a naming convention for their releases, beginning with Vol. 1 and continuing through Vol. 6, which was the title of their last full-length in 2019. Since then the band have released a pair of singles, and now they’re combining those singles along with a brand new song in a new EP entitled Vol. 7, which will be released on April 15th by Hidden Tribe. What we have for you today is the premiere of that brand new song, “Lunar Gateways“. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: CENTINEX — “THE PESTILENCE”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Mar 302022

(We present DGR‘s review of a new MLP by the Swedish death metal band Centinex. It will be released by Agonia Records on April 1st.)

We have our pillars of consistency on this website, the ones we go to because we know exactly what we’ll be in for from moment one. Surprises are welcome but for the most part these are the bands who’ve long found what works for them and are sticking to it.

Centinex are one such band, part of the wave of death metal that so rigidly adheres to old school philosophies that you could pull any release from their discography and it would feel more like a snapshot out of an older time than a modern release. They found their power in the classic thudding bass and snare drum rotation and the joyfully-stupid guitar riff that buzzes so hard your headphones sound like you might’ve kicked a bees’ nest without noticing.

Since their reformation in 2014, Centinex have released a handful of solid-as-hell death metal records and shifted lineups sizeably once, with bassist Martin Schulman remaining the main pillar of the group. Centinex are his classic death metal band and when he wants to aim for something more in line with the current gallop-and-blastfest style, then he shifts into Demonical mode.

Both groups, however, find themselves with releases prepared for 2022, and for Centinex that means a brand new four-song EP entitled The Pestilence, with the same lineup that made 2020’s Death In Pieces. Would you believe us if we said that, once again, Centinex have written music that is about as red meat for the crowd as red meat comes? Continue reading »

SUNDOWNING: “IN THE LIGHT OF DEFEAT, I CEASE TO EXIST”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 292022

(Wil Cifer reviews the first new album in a decade by the German post-metal band Sundowning, which is out now via Isolation Records.)

In today’s bleak world I have taken to leaning into that feeling of impending doom. Whatever you resist persists, so in seeking to cocoon myself in sonic darkness as the soundtrack for the road the world is going down I found this German band. Their hymns of hopelessness are a perfect fit.

They meet at the crossroads of doom, sludge and sometimes death metal. Less of the crust-punk recklessness sludge evolved from and a darker, more mournful sound. This sentiment leads them in more of a doom direction most of the time. Guitars weep against the pounding the rest of the band bring, while the vocals stay in more of a hypnotic chant. Though when the instrumentation ebbs back, growled vocals shift the narrative tone. Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH – IMMUTABLE

Album Reviews 4 Responses »

Mar 282022

(Andy Synn goes big with the new album from the inimitable, immutable, Meshuggah, out this Friday)

As you may know, if you’ve been hanging around this site for any length of time, we don’t always bother to cover the big names and famous faces.

After all, the big dogs already tend to get more than their fair share of attention and acclaim – since they’re usually the ones with the bigger budgets, the best PR reps, and the most backing – so any coverage we might add would just be a drop in the ocean, relatively speaking.

Plus there’s the fact that, after a certain point, these sorts of bands just become “too big to fail”. No matter what the critics say – most of whom, let’s be honest, don’t want to risk rocking the boat by saying anything negative anyway – their fans are pretty much always going to pre-order their new stuff, so we’d be much better off dedicating our efforts to where, and who, they can actually make a difference.

There are exceptions to this rule, however, and I’m making one today for the new album by Meshuggah.

Not because, as some have already written, it’s “the band’s best album yet” (it’s not) or “a major step in their evolution” (it’s really not… though there are certainly seeds of something…) but because it’s a perfect example of an album which deserves a fair and balanced appraisal but which, due to the impenetrable aura of hype which surrounds the band these days, is unlikely to get it.

Older Entries Newer Entries