INFERI: “VILE GENESIS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 272021
 

 

(We present DGR‘s review of the latest album by Nashville-based Inferi, out now on The Artisan Era, with cover art by Helge Balzer.)

It’s a mantra often repeated when it comes to Inferi albums – and actually, to a much larger extent, the Artisan Era‘s artist roster as a whole, considering the label’s specialization – that Inferi releases are the sorts of albums that put the tech-death concept of “everything and the kitchen sink” songwriting to shame, the sort of releases where long after the first listen you’re still finding new things that will perk your interest.

Inferi’s latest album Vile Genesis is in that vein, with eight songs absolutely bursting at the seams with different elements, riff worship, frenetic leads, frenzied drumming, hefty bass work, and manic vocals that just constantly seems to be ratcheted up to 120% with absolutely no room to breathe. The band have long since made a name for themselves in the world of ‘we play fast’ but it’s still just as initially overwhelming as it always is.

You’d never think someone managed to figure out how to get a bulldozer to set a landspeed record, but somehow Inferi do it every time they put out an album. You put it on, get run over, and then you do it again and again as the music just whips past you. Which is likely going to be a pretty common occurrence among listeners because Vile Genesis has a lot of really good material to dig into and you’re going to be bowled over constantly doing it. Continue reading »

GRAVPEL – POWER TO THE FILTHY MASSES

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Oct 262021
 

(Andy Synn has thoughts about the debut album from Anarcho-Punk Black Metal crew Gravpel)

So much for the “tolerant” left, am I right?

In all seriousness, I’ve always found it pretty ridiculous that bands who espouse so-called “left wing” views are assumed to be soft, sensitive snowflakes… since not only is that patently false, but it also ignores the fact that Heavy Metal, from its very outset, has always been rooted in this end of the political spectrum, hence its rich history of anti-fascist, anti-authoritarian, and even anti-capitalist sentiment.

Of course, Metal as a genre hasn’t always had the most nuanced grasp of politics, I’ll give you that, especially when you consider that most bands tend to define themselves by opposition – being against something, rather than for something – in a rather reactionary, and often self-defeating, kind of way.

But while Swiss Black Metal quintet Gravpel most definitely aren’t afraid to let you know exactly what they stand for – which is taking Black Metal back to its Punk roots and giving an almighty “fuck you” to all the Nazis, bigots, and fascist sympathisers attempting to use the genre to spread their fucked-up world view.

Continue reading »

BETRAYAL: “DISORDER REMAINS”

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Oct 252021
 

 

(This is DGR‘s review of a new album by the German band Betrayal, which was released last April by Rising Nemesis Records.)

There are some albums that, no matter how late in the year it may be when we’re able to write them up, feel like we absolutely must do so, especially when we would otherwise have to explain why all of a sudden the album seems to appear basically out of nowhere on our year-end list. Betrayal’s Disorder Remains is one such album.

Disorder Remains was released six months ago in the middle of April, and I do expect it will be barreling onto my year-end list, despite our previous failure to talk about it at length (we did premiere a song from it in April). We’ve covered the German genre-splicing group in greater depth before, as their previous release Infinite Circle was an album that won a few of us over five years back, so if you’ve been with us a while you’ve likely seen the name. But with Disorder Remains the thrashier-prog-death hybridization that Betrayal get up to is elevated to a whole other level, playing out like the most natural evolutionary step the band could’ve made with their sound. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CONTRITION — “BROKEN MORTAL COIL”

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Oct 252021
 

 

The resumes of the people in Chicago-based Contrition open eyes. Those people are Jerome Marshall (Cobalt, Yakuza) on vocals, Garry Naples (Novembers Doom, Without Waves) on drums, Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, Deeper Graves, ex-Wolvhammer) on guitars and synth, and Jon Woodring (Bones, ex-Usurper) on bass. As an educated guess, they’ve got all sorts of different music swirling through their heads from day to day, even making room for the silence of sleep and maybe a few other silences. So, where did they go under the name Contrition on their debut album, Broken Mortal Coil?

The astute among you will already have an idea, based on the singles that have emerged in the run-up to the October 29 release by Wilson’s Disorder Recordings. Some of you may even know that a couple of these people already collaborated in a band called Doomsday, which released one self-titled EP in 2012 (worth tracking down if you don’t have it), and which itself provides some distant clues.

But I’m going to pretend you don’t know where these four (and their noteworthy guests) coalesced on Broken Mortal Coil, that your minds are as clean as an erased chalkboard, still dusty but ready to be filled, or wrecked. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): INTAGLIO — “II”

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Oct 252021
 

 

The second album by Russia’s Intaglio, unassumingly entitled II, follows their debut by more than 15 years. It is filled with moments that set off fireworks inside a listener’s head.

That’s probably not something you expect to read about a band whose music is classified by Metal Archives as “Funeral Doom”. Most music so classified is more likely to mesmerize than it is to provoke gasps of wonder. But II isn’t typical, and while it is indeed entrancing, the magnificent spell it casts derives from unusual ingredients and an unusual conception (and Funeral Doom is no longer an adequate description).

In its conception, II was intended to be experienced as a single long piece. It has a 7-part track list (though there are no pauses between the tracks) and consists of movements, but it is accurately described as a single “doom opera” which achieves its full impact only when heard from beginning to end.

For its ingredients, Intaglio assembled a large cast of performers and live instruments. Seven professional singers contributed voices that range from basso profundo to soprano. The instruments included not only a panoply of electric and acoustic guitars and percussive sources but also classical instruments such as upright bass, cello, chimes, and flute, as well as mouth harp. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): SOL SISTERE, FERAL SEASON, DARKEST MIND, END ALL LIFE

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Oct 242021
 

 

As promised, this is Part 2 of the column I began here earlier today. It includes reviews and streams of two recently released albums, a track from a forthcoming debut full-length, and a very promising two-song demo.

SOL SISTERE (Chile)

In the summer of this year I premiered a song and video for this next album of atmospheric black metal (which is self-titled though it’s the band’s third full-length). Sometimes that’s the best I can do to help spread the word about a new release, but for this one I felt I should do something more.

At eight tracks and an hour of total music, Sol Sistere provides a lot to take in. More than merely the accumulated length, the music itself provides a wide-ranging experience. At their heights of intensity, the songs deliver jaw-dropping panoramas of sweeping, soaring, incendiary magnificence, with an emotional impact equal to the colossal sonic impact. The moods are often wrenching, manifesting anguish in shattering ways (the vocals alone are relentlessly shattering). Even when the breathtaking typhoons of sound soften, sorrow usually reigns. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): EUCHARIST, VUKARI, LIGHT BEING

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Oct 242021
 

This turned into a much bigger round-up of black lights than I had anticipated. It started off shorter, but the predicted “bomb cyclone” in the Puget Sound turned into a big fat nothing yesterday, my wife laughed and went off to pal around with a friend, and I had a chunk of time to myself, with the cats peacefully sleeping. And so I expanded this to include three full albums and an EP, in addition to a couple of exciting advance tracks and a debut demo.

To make this large collection more digestible, I’ve divided it into two parts. I’m confident Part 2 will be ready later today, even though at this point it’s only partially written.

Even with the extra time I found yesterday, I’ve still kept my commentary somewhat brief on the longer releases, though I find all of them thrilling and hope you will too. Same goes for the other songs in this collection. Most of the world is a rotten mess, but musicians are still pulling out the stops. Maybe someday people will look back on these days as a covid Renaissance. We’re a miserable species, but we’re indefatigable.

EUCHARIST (Sweden)

Having been one of those rare people who came to extreme metal late in life, I’m not someone who experienced the foundational genre movements of the ’90s first-hand. And so it was only by reading that I came to understand the role of Eucharist. Continue reading »

COGNIZANCE: “UPHEAVAL”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 222021
 

 

(In late September Prosthetic Records released the second album by the UK band Cognizance, and better late than never we hope, DGR gives it the following very enthusiastic review.)

Upheaval, the newest album by tech-death group Cognizance, looks pretty standard if you go by tale-of-the-tape measurements for a disc, at ten songs and a little over thirty-three minutes. But one of the things that stands out with Upheaval – once you get past the eye-popping artwork – is that this is an album that fucking moves.

It may sound like a joke at first, but Cognizance waste absolutely no time with this one. The band find their groove early and stick to it for a half hour, and often you don’t even notice the time going by until the opening drum hit of “Hymns” reminds you that you’re back at song one.

Cognizance are brutally efficient with their time on Upheaval and it quickly lands the band in the ‘rolling landslide of riffs’ category of albums. You throw the thing on, it just bowls you over, and then the process starts anew. Which can sound wild at first, because it gives the impression that Upheaval kind of blasts by you without a second thought, but then you start breaking it down into individual songs and you realize that because the bar is set so high, so early on, that what is happening here is that Cognizance became ruthless in making hammering tech-death tracks in the interim. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): BLATTARIA, INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH, APPARITION, SUBLATION

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Oct 212021
 

 

I wrote yesterday that there would be a Part 2 of this mid-week roundup. I wrote that to keep pressure on myself to follow through. Self-pressure doesn’t always work, but it did this time.

Just like the music in yesterday’s installment was geared to keep you on your toes as you move through it, or set you back on your heels, I think this collection will do the same. It consists of three EPs and then a couple of songs from a forthcoming album.

BLATTARIA (U.S.)

This makes the third time I’ve raved about this solo project of Oklahoma City musician Manuel Garcia, having done so in considering both the 2019 album Life Is A Disease and the self-titled 2017 debut. What makes it even easier to continue raving in the case of Blattaria’s new EP They Seek Power is the realization that Blattaria just keeps moving from strength to greater strength. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FUNERALIUM — “DECREPIT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Oct 212021
 

 

The French funeral doom band Funeralium named their 2004 debut demo Ultra Sick Doom, and the name has stuck as a shorthand for their music. But what does it mean? As portrayed in their formidable fourth album Decrepit, it’s music that plumbs the depths of human illness — not so much the magnitude of the diseases that afflict the human body (though as you’ll see, this plays a role) but the deep-seated flaws in humankind which cause us to relentlessly ruin the Earth, our only home.

More precisely, we’re told that the concept of Decrepit was born in 2019 from the conviction that mankind was working tirelessly toward its own demise, diligently destroying its own habitat and the habitat of all other species — only to have these convictions reaffirmed during the first year of the pandemic, a year that seemed to cement the certainty of these convictions, and a likely forerunner of even worse times to come.

And so it was during the pandemic that Funeralium went back to studios in scattered locations to record the four imposing songs that make up Decrepit, creating devastating music on a scale (and with a sound) that matches the magnitude and nuances of the self-destructive human sickness that inspired it. Continue reading »

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