Album Reviews Archives - Page 166 of 557

REDEMPTOR – AGONIA

Dec 012021

(Andy Synn has a long history with Redemptor, so we knew he was the only man for the job when it came to writing about their new album, Agonia, which comes out Friday on SelfMadeGod Records)

I love Death Metal. And, if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you do too.

But, as someone who loves Death Metal I do find myself wondering sometimes… where is the genre going?

Let’s face it, there’s only so far, and so fast, that the more “Technical” and/or “Brutal” strains can push things before giving themselves whiplash, crippling arthritis, or an aneurysm, and only so many times that the corpse of “Old School” Death Metal can be dug up for yet another revival before it starts to smell, well, a little off.

What I’m really looking for, then, what I’m hoping for, is a new generation to step up and refine/define a form of Death Metal that’s actually new – call it “Post-Death Metal”, if you’re so inclined – rather than simply presenting something that’s just a flashier or more “extreme” variant of what we already know.

We’re not quite there yet – not as far as I can tell anyway – but it seems to me that there’s several bands already moving in this direction, capturing both the vibe and atmosphere of the genre without precisely fitting in with any one particular sub-style, and Redemptor are clearly right at the forefront of this movement, if the evidence presented on Agonia has anything to say about it.

SWALLOW THE SUN: “MOONFLOWERS”

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Dec 012021

(DGR continues an extensive series of reviews this week with the following take on Swallow the Sun‘s new album, which is out now on the Century Media label.)

Swallow The Sun are at a point now in their careers that they’ve become an institution in the realms of all things moody and melancholic. It’s been a journey too, one that has been exceedingly well-documented and at times absolutely heart-wrenching – and not just musically – and in my own personal case, one dating all the way back to 2007’s Hope album. The band are already at two decades of slow, frozen, and moody doom music and it has been interesting watching their trajectory into and out of funeral doom, fuller-sounding death metal, and even moody-rock music. Here at NCS we are very well acquainted with all of those journeys – especially since yours truly is now on the third review for the band with this most recent release.

Moonflowers arrived on November 19th via Century Media Records and comes to us nearly two and a half years after 2019’s When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light. Granted, when you consider that seven of Swallow The Sun‘s eight mainline releases have hit during a period between November and February, you could argue that the group have carved out quite a niche for themselves in the colder months of the year. Continue reading »

IN MOURNING: “THE BLEEDING VEIL”

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Nov 302021

(DGR prepared the following review of the new album by the Swedish band In Mourning, just released on November 26th.)

In Mourning have definitely found a sound since the heady days of 2012 and their release of The Weight Of Oceans. Creating their own loosely conceptual lyrical universe, that album laid the groundwork for just about every release of In Mourning that followed it. While early works in the band’s discography would land them on the radar of prog-death fans – and I will go to bat for Monolith being an absolutely fantastic and underrated release – The Weight Of Oceans and its doom and post-metal influences would be where In Mourning would stake their claim.

Both 2016’s Afterglow and 2019’s Garden Of Storms continued along that path, acting as extensions of that musical world, sometimes wandering down a more death metal oriented path and sometimes going full avant-garde, as Garden Of Storms would reach its tendrils into every crevice it found. Now firmly ensconced in their corner of the progressive death metal world and with an even smaller gap between releases, In Mourning are with us once again with The Bleeding Veil, the group’s sixth full-length and the third release so far to contain seven songs in its track list.

Given that the throughline of The Bleeding Veil and its two most recent siblings is so similar, it’s interesting to see what paths In Mourning have decided to chart this time around. The Bleeding Veil is In Mourning in full focusing mode, as the disc takes all of the different directions that Garden Of Storms shot out and hones them down, refining them into a much more tied and tighter release. Continue reading »

LOCK UP: “THE DREGS OF HADES”

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Nov 292021

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new album by deathgrind superstars Lock Up, just released by Listenable Records.)

While everyone else was enjoying their holiday here in the States and those of us who worked retail dreaded the following day, your reviewer here was waiting patiently for that dreaded following day as well. Not because there was some innate urge to go trample someone in the charge to catch not only a potentially deadly disease but also a deal on a TV, but because that Friday also delivered to us an absolute bludgeoning of new releases to listen to. What this also provided was a fantastic case of genre-whiplash as Voices, In Mourning, and today’s subject Lock Up would also release their newest additions to their collective works.

The Dregs Of Hades is Lock Up‘s fifth full-length release in a pretty long career, but one that has seen newer releases becoming far more frequent than the gaps left between their second and third albums. It also has some new additions to the group. Notably, Nick Barker and his fantastic neverending drum fills have bowed out and Misery Index/Pig Destroyer drum-kit annihilator Adam Jarvis is in. Also, one of the changes that equally grabbed press was the return of Tomas Lindberg back into the fold on vocals – tag-teaming alongside Brutal Truth’s Kevin Sharp for an interesting hardcore punk tinge of gang shouts and dual-pronged vocal attacks to the group’s constantly hair-on-fire style of grind music. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): REJEKTS — “ADAMO”

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Nov 292021

I was unfamiliar with the previous recordings of the Italian band REJEKTS, but experienced a reflexive thrill when I read that their new album Adamo embraces “grindcore, black metal and more”. Blackened grindcore, when done well, usually gets my motor running, but it turns out that perhaps the most meaningful part of that quoted PR passage is the part that says “and more”.

The lyrical themes of REJEKTS are politically charged, in keeping with their punk and grindcore ethos, and on Adamo they do indeed strike with black-metal bursts of blasting drums, grim and cutting tremolo’d riffs, and shrieking vocal intensity. But yes, there’s more going on here — a lot more.

Unlike standard grindcore, the songs are elaborate and constantly surprising, fueled with gripping mood-changing melodies, and as devoted to the creation of harrowing “atmosphere” (for want of a better word) as they are to pushing a listener’s adrenaline into overdrive. The album experience is disturbing, but absolutely riveting from start to finish. And thus we take great pleasure in presenting a full stream in advance of its rapidly approaching December 3rd release by Slaughterhouse Records. Continue reading »

VHS: “I HEARD THEY SUCK… BLOOD”

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Nov 292021

(Here’s Todd Manning‘s review of the new album by Ontario-based VHS, which is set for a December 3rd release by Wise Blood Records.)

Halloween lasts all year long unless you’re a poser. So it doesn’t really matter that Canada’s death fiends VHS aren’t dropping their album I Heard They Suck…Blood until December 3rd, the shit is going to hit you the same regardless. Like Halloween, the influences VHS lean on feel eternal in Metal’s history. Take one part Scream Bloody Gore, mix in some early Autopsy, Repulsion, and more recently Exhumed, and you have a fist-pumping, gore-spewing recipe for old school death metal.

While not exactly breaking the mold, VHS take the sound of their predecessors and make it their own. They look to a time when death metal’s DNA still had a lot of thrash mixed up in it. Not the polished excellence of the Bay Area bands, but that nasty sound pioneered by Kreator and early Slayer. Oftentimes, such as on “Fake Blood and Push-Up Bras”, a track that features Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad, things take on an almost punk feel. For those sections, the Autopsy influence gives way to Abcess, yet when they do slow down, the evil melodies of Chris Reifert’s home base return. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABHORRATION — “AFTER WINTER COMES WAR”

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Nov 252021

The Norwegian trio Abhorration (guitarist/vocalist Magnus, bassist Andreas, and drummer Øyvind) are a relatively new formation, having started life just last year, but their resumes portended quality, even before any of the music became public — because those members hail from such bands as Condor, Nekromantheon, Hecatomb, Resonaut, Purple Hill Witch, and Obliteration.

We hope that the foregoing list of bands has already peaked your interest in discovering what Abhorration‘s music is all about (it certainly peaked ours). The publicity distributed by Invictus Productions, which will release the band’s debut EP After Winter Comes War, makes further reference to death metal in the vein of such legends as classic Sadistic Intent, Morbid Angel, Possessed, and early Vader, which kindles even more interest.

All of this created high expectations in these quarters, and it’s such a pleasure to proclaim that those expectations were not merely met but exceeded. And thus it’s with genuine delight that we present a full stream of this heart-pounding EP for you today. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GODHEAD MACHINERY — “MONOTHEISTIC ENSLAVEMENT”

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Nov 242021

In tale June of this year we premiered and reviewed an EP by the Swedish band Godhead Machinery named Masquerade Among Gods, which added to a discography that then included two full-lengths, Ouroboros (2017) and Aligned to the Grid (2019). We offered these thoughts about it (among many others):

“Through the four songs on this EP, when absorbed straight through, Godhead Machinery have created a truly harrowing and haunting experience. The music is multi-faceted and intricate, revealing (in the simplest of genre terms) an amalgamation of black, death, doom, and progressive metal that’s capable of generating visions of frightening calamity, earth-shaking upheaval, and terrible grandeur, but also casting mesmerizing spells and plunging the listener into moods of soul-shaking sorrow”.

Conceptually, the EP was connected to a then-upcoming album, both of them spawned from what the band stands for in general, which is to serve as “a tool to analyze how religious beliefs infiltrate laws, policy, behaviors, and moral codes of today’s society”. Now that album is fast approaching its November 26 release by Black Lion Records. The album’s name is Monotheistic Enslavement, and today you’ll have the opportunity to experience all of its tremendous power. Continue reading »

DAKHMA – BLESSINGS OF AMURDAD

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Nov 242021

(Andy Synn steps off the beaten path once more to discuss the new album by Swiss extremists Dakhma)

Genre terms – Death Metal, Black Metal, Thrash Metal, Doom Metal, and so on – are, ultimately, simply a tool like any other.

And, like any tool, they can be used productively, or counter-productively, depending on how (and how carefully) they’re employed.

For myself I find them to be very useful (especially when I’m trying to describe, in words, the experience of listening to music which many of my readers won’t actually have heard yet) but they’re certainly not the be-all and end-all by any means.

Case in point, the words “Blackened Death Metal” have become synonymous with the imperious, almost militaristic, blast-driven sound made famous by bands like Behemoth, Hate, Azarath, etc.

But there’s far more to this particular sub-genre than that, as demonstrated by the new album from Swiss duo Dakhma, whose more abrasive and arcane approach positions them more as sonic and spiritual cousins to the likes of Teitanblood, Vassafor, and Altarage.

CONVERGE AND CHELSEA WOLFE: “BLOODMOON: I”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Nov 232021

(Bloodmoon: I, the new collaborative album created by Converge alongside Chelsea Wolfe, her bandmate/writing partner Ben Chisholm, and Cave In vocalist/guitarist Stephen Brodsky, is out now on CD and across all streaming platforms via Epitaph Records, with a vinyl edition coming next year. Wil Cifer provides the following review.)

When one of my favorite artists releases an album, you might assume I listen to it for the first time in a blissful state gushing how they can do no wrong. Perhaps this is what neuro-normative people do. I am not one of those. Instead, my expectations are so high that I go into it anxious that they are going to let me down and tarnish their pristine legacy. Why am I explaining this to you?

One, this is not merely one of my favorite artists but a collaboration between two of them. I have been listening to Converge since the ’90s so we have more history, but Chelsea Wolfe‘s career I have championed for over a decade now. One friend of mine sent me a link to their earliest collaboration at the Roadburn Festival where this collaboration first spawned from and said:

“Chelsea Wolfe jamming with Converge is one of the most Wil things ever”. Continue reading »

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