CHAT PILE: “GOD’S COUNTRY”

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Aug 012022
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new Chat Pile album, released last Friday, July 29th, by The Flenser.)

Perhaps this band from Oklahoma City once fit within the neat parameters of a metal subgenre. Then marijuana in their fair city was grown much stronger. Sure, aside from “medical use” the groovy green is illegal, but the sounds made on this album have been created by deeply troubled young men who must surely qualify at dispensaries. Even if they do not, metal is still the music of the outsider. An outsider is not just outside of social norms, but the laws of said norms are coughed at as well. Often with a red-eyed grin.

This band embrace their dark side, though from all the pot talk thus far you must imagine them to be on the wavelength of Sleep or Bongzilla. This is not the case. They are more abrasive than either and owe more to Black Flag than Sabbath. They are angry and put those feelings out on their instruments. Continue reading »

PSYCROPTIC: “DIVINE COUNCIL”

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Jul 282022
 

 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new album by Australia’s Psycroptic, which is in line for release on August 5th via Prosthetic Records.)

Technical death metal is an old enough genre now that you can have a tier of bands considered progenitors and a tier considered pillars of the genre. It’s a wild thought, considering it didn’t seem that long ago that the genre was the one where all the younger musicians were heading, younger bands breaking into the scene, and a whole bunch of baby-faced instrumental wizards who could play miles around even the simplest riffs.

The thought came to mind with Psycroptic‘s latest album Divine Council, because it is the group’s eighth full-length release in a career dating all the way back to the early-00’s. They’ve been such a known entity that Psycroptic albums were predictable highlights of the year. You know for the most part what you’re in for with the band, and if you really, really love that kinetic and manic writing style that has the band bouncing all over the place, then generally you couldn’t go wrong with a Psycroptic disc.

It’s not often you get to describe a tech-death artist as sounding like they’re bordering on an anxiety attack but Psycroptic‘s rapid vocal delivery and quick songs have kept them there for a while now. It was in the margins, and how the group augmented their sound, that there would be differences. Divine Council doesn’t move the needle that much from its immediate predecessor, but in the case of the album that came before it, that may not be such a bad thing, no? Continue reading »

SARATTMA: “ESCAPE VELOCITY”

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Jul 262022
 

 

(Todd Manning has turned in this extravagant review of an extravagant album by Philadelphia’s Sarattma, which will be out on August 12th.)

It may take years for us to know all the things we missed during the early days of Covid. Apparently, Philadelphia-based duo Sarattma recorded their debut album Escape Velocity in 2019 but it’s just now about to drop, courtesy of Nefarious Industries.

The duo consists of guitarist Matt Hollenberg, best known for his work in various John Zorn projects, along with Cleric and John Frum as well, joined here by Sara Neidorf, who did a stint with Brian Jonestown Massacre and played with doom metal band Aptera and doom-jazz duo Mellowdeath. Both those outfits are vastly underrated and deserve investigation. Sarattma, though, finds Hollenberg and Neidorf at the pinnacle of their instrumental abilities. Continue reading »

ORDER OV RIVEN CATHEDRALS: “ABSOLUTE”

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Jul 252022
 

(Here we present DGR‘s review of a new album by the Italian dark death metal architects Order Ov Riven Cathedrals, which was released by Ultimate Massacre Productions.)

Late May of this year saw the release of Order Ov Riven Cathedrals‘ fourth album, Absolute – their first via a record label. The ever-ambitious brutal death project took some time between their third album Thermonuclear Sculptures Blackness and Absolute, almost three years in fact, after having previously placed themselves on an increasingly intense year-over-year churn of albums.

There’s a few surprising things about Absolute for those who have been following the band as long as this site has. You’re likely already familiar with them essentially as a two-piece hyperspeed blastbeat bulldozer, but Absolute could actually serve as something of a bookend for the slate of releases Order Ov Riven Cathedrals have put out thus far. It shares more in common with the group’s debut release The Discontinuity’s Interlude than its immediate predecessor, especially when you take into account that both weigh in at a concise seven songs and clock in at about thirty-two minutes a piece. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ABIGORUM, MISERY, RAAT, OBLITI DEVORAVIT

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Jul 242022
 


“Dracula’s castle” by Daniele Serra

I’m afraid I have no time to set the stage today with introductory comments, other than to fore-warn you that the moods of today’s selections are intensely dark and packed with pain. Paradoxically, the intensity may make you feel terrifyingly alive and perversely spellbound.

ABIGORUM (Georgia/Germany)

In 2021 Abigorum released their latest album, Vergessene Stille. On that record, the band had been reduced to the size of a duo, combining the talents of Russian musician Aleksey Korolyov (who now lives in Georgia) and German guitarist/vocalist Tino Thiele (from Wulfgar and Metamorph).

In the lead-in to that album we premiered a song named “Erhebt eure mit Blut gefüllten Hörner“, which managed to create an experience that was both hypnotizing and nightmarish, both hauntingly seductive and terrorizing. It was not alone in those respects, as we’ve been reminded by a new video for another song off that album. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: DEATH BREATH, VORLUST, CONSUMPTION, ILUNA PERPETUA

 Album Reviews, Metal News, Movie Reviews, Premieres, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 232022
 

 

Would one four-song roundup yesterday have been satisfactory? Were two of them too many? Is it overkill to add music from four more bands today, for an even dozen of them? I hear your answers to those questions, all those deafening howls of “NO!!! WE WANT MORE!!!””

So, on we go….

DEATH BREATH (Sweden/U.S.)

It took me almost a week to catch up to Death Breath‘s two-track EP, The Old Hag, but once I did I haven’t been able to get enough of it. It does its dirty work in just a bit more than 7 minutes, which makes it really fucking easy to keep going back to it whenever I need a musical riot to rocket me out of the doldrums and make me feel like fighting the bastard world. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: ASHENSPIRE / THE EVER LIVING / ITHACA

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jul 212022
 

(Andy Synn provides another insight into the rich diversity and vitality of the UK scene)

Living in the UK, but being very much on the fringes of the UK “scene” – I’d say we were the black sheep but that presupposes we were ever part of the flock in the first place! – is an odd situation to be in.

On the one hand it feels like, no matter how many of these columns I write, and no matter how many shows we play, I’m always going to be an outsider.

On the other, however, it’s oddly freeing… I don’t have to worry about upsetting people (and, trust me on this, some people can’t take even the mildest criticism) and can write about who and what I want, from big names to relative unknowns, without anyone accusing me of having any sort of hidden agenda or ulterior motive.

So when I tell you that all three of these albums – one from last week, one from this week, and one scheduled for next week – are all worth your time you should be confident that I’m not just blowing smoke… I really mean it.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HERIDA PROFUNDA — “POWER TO THE PEOPLE”

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Jul 212022
 

It’s hard to understand what life is really like in another country unless you’ve lived there, or maybe spent a lot of time seriously studying it from afar. In the case of Poland, I’ve done neither. Living in the United States, what I know about the current state of affairs in Poland comes just from reading a scattering of news stories from time to time.

A lot of the recent stories tend to focus on the country’s support for Ukraine in its struggle against the Russian invasion, and the huge volume of Ukrainian refugees that have flooded into Poland. At least here, that reporting (which comes with a favorable gloss) has tended to eclipse other things I remember reading about the autocratic and theocratic nature of the country’s right-wing ruling regime over the last few years.

Herida Profunda‘s new album Power to the People caused me to re-focus on those eclipsed narratives. The band’s frustration and fury over socio-political conditions in Poland (where they live) is plain for all to see (and hear) in the album. The music burns so ferociously that you could know and feel the emotions that spawned it even if you were ignorant about its lyrical content.

Of course, the assaults on civil rights that have been occurring in Poland are happening in many other countries, including the one where I live. And thus Power to the People is a rallying cry that knows no borders. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: GALUNDO TENVULANCE — “THE DISRUPTOR DESCENDS”

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Jul 202022
 

(DGR enjoyed the first EP by the Japanese band Galundo Tenvulance, released last year, and as recounted in the following review he seems to be enjoying the second one too.)

Only a handful of months ago while in a fit of caffeinated pique did we check in with Japanese -core band Galundo Tenvulance. The young group were on their second EP way back in ye’ olden days of 2021, yet for some reason the idea of reviewing it right before jetting out to go catch covid see MDF this year was very, very funny. It’s not the bands fault at all, just the fun of finding something that was fairly good – if full to the brim with style and genre-tropes – from a group who were clearly still finding their feet style-wise. So much so, that this is the sort of early state a band can be in where sounds differ drastically between releases as they add new influences to the overall course.

Not even a month and a half after we ran that review though, which we did in an attempt to buttress the site while we were out standing in one very long line of Edison Lot shade courtesy of a billboard pole, laughing about how some people forget that Coroner get kind of weird at times and have long keyboard breaks, or dodging thunderstorms, did the crew behind Galundo Tenvulance release a new EP in the form of The Disruptor Descends.

The question with The Disruptor Descends is that with a whole year between their releases and now functioning as a four-piece, what sort of stylistic jump did the band make? Continue reading »

PANZERFAUST – THE SUNS OF PERDITION, CHAPTER III: THE ASTRAL DRAIN

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 192022
 

(Andy Synn presents some thoughts on the new album from Canada’s Panzerfaust, which premiered in full here today.)

There comes a time, in every band’s career (ok, not every band’s career) where they produce an album which seems purposefully designed to piss off large sections of their fanbase.

Sometimes it’s because that album is a ridiculous misfire that would have been better off released under a different name entirely (or, even better, not at all).

Other times it’s a misunderstood masterpiece whose true value will only be appreciated in the years to come.

The Astral Drain is destined to become one of these albums.

But which will it be?

Continue reading »

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