THE BEST OF BRITISH – GOD COMPLEX / GREEN LUNG / STILL

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 212021
 

(Andy Synn brings forth another terrific trio of releases from his green and (un)pleasant homeland)

It’s pretty appropriate that I’m doing another “Best of British” column this week, as I just got back from playing a festival in Manchester featuring a wealth of good/great/excellent bands from the UK underground scene.

Of course, since we were there as performers rather than just punters we weren’t able to catch as many bands as we’d have liked, but I encourage you all to keep an eye out (and at least one ear open) for more from up-and-coming Thrash-core whippersnappers Tortured Demon, groove-driven and harmony-laden Post-Grunge metallers Scare Tactics, and cinematic Symphonic Death-dealers Ghosts of Atlantis (whose latest album was covered by our own DGR not long ago), as what we caught from each of them proved very promising indeed.

However, today isn’t about those bands, today is about God Complex, Green Lung, and Still.
Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SEXMAG — “SEX METAL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Oct 202021
 

What’s in a name?

In the case of extreme metal bands, there has been a long tradition of names that invoke evil, violence, dark fantasy and mysticism, horror, nihilism, and of course death itself in all of its guises. The impact of such names as Slayer, Emperor, Immortal, Immolation, Suffocation, Darkthrone, Hellhammer, Entombed, Mayhem, Bloodbath, and of course Death (to pick just a few) has been long-lasting.

Of course, the tradition hasn’t been rigidly honored — for example, remember the “verb-the-name” formula that dominated at the height of deathcore? — but naming rites to this day still tend to signify something about musical inspirations, many of them continuing to reflect the transgressive nature of the music in serious and shuddering words.

Which brings us to SexMag. So what’s in a name? In the case of this band and their debut EP Sex Metal, more than you might guess. Continue reading »

THE BREATHING PROCESS: “LABYRINTHIAN”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 202021
 

 

(This is DGR‘s review of the new album by The Breathing Process, which was released on October 8th by Unique Leader.)

Sometimes a song can define a whole album for you. Samsara, the previous release by the genre maelstrom of deathcore, symphonic death, and black metal that is The Breathing Process, definitely had one of those songs. An eight-year gap between albums saw a group with a ton of material available to them, and Samara was one of those albums where every song was different, but if you’ve lurked around these hallowed halls long enough you’ve probably heard me banging the drum about the song “The Nothing” enough times to consider calling the cops and filing a noise complaint.

It was a massive song that was equal parts dynamic and cinematic and it was something that I had hoped The Breathing Process would take cues from in the future. Well, like all good turn-of-the-millennium TV commercials about the internet, “The Future Is Now”. October 8th saw the release of the band’s newest album, Labyrinthian, arriving only three years after Samsara and with a new vocalist in tow. Armed with over fifty minutes of music on their latest release, The Breathing Process have an album that is singularly focused on one objective, in comparison to its predecessor. After a handful of listens the one thing the band really seem to have settled on is sounding massive. Continue reading »

HATE: “RUGIA”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 192021
 

 

(This is DGR‘s review of Hate‘s 12th album, which was released by Metal Blade on October 15th.)

I guarantee you my Hate collection is incomplete given the storied career that Poland’s blackened death metal export have had, but my music library informs me that I still have upwards of ninety-something songs accredited to them. I sometimes wonder if that is being generous, as Hate are one of those groups who are a hallmark of consistency in the metal scene.

After having found a blueprint that worked for them, Hate have been rigid adherents to it. They’ll put a spin on it so that over time the outside of the package morphs and changes, but that core is solid and immovable. That’s why it doesn’t really feel like I have ninety-something songs from Hate, so much as I have three-to-four distinct moods of the band, as they continually remake the outer structure of their machine while keeping that main sort of imperial march to their overall sound.

In my review of Aborted’s Maniacult release, I mused on the idea of how some bands have served as a gateway to deeper genres, and one of the ways of doing so has been by achieving the sort of consistency that could be compared to a Japanese train line. Continue reading »

ARCHSPIRE – BLEED THE FUTURE

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 182021
 

(Andy Synn takes up the challenge of reviewing the new album from Archspire, out 29 October )

I don’t know about you, but it seems more and more evident to me with each passing year that the current Tech Death scene has gotten itself caught up in a perpetual arms race of velocity and virtuosity.

And, sure, it can be a real thrill to witness bands continually pushing themselves, and pushing the envelope, in terms of how many notes per second and beats per minute they can crank out, but you know what happens when an arms race reaches its inevitable conclusion, right?

Mutually assured destruction.

Thankfully, this particular scenario may not be quite as inevitable as it appears, as several of the genre’s leading lights seem to have realised that this constant competition over who can be the fastest, techiest, or shreddiest isn’t necessarily the healthiest way to live, and have already begun taking steps to ensure that when the bubble finally bursts – and it will – there will at least be a few bands left standing.

And I’d put money on Archspire being one of them.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PRIMEVAL WELL — “TALKIN’ IN TONGUES WITH MOUNTAIN SPIRITS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Oct 152021
 

 

I grew up in central Texas in a household of three generations that included an old-time folk fiddler and a square-dance pianist. Sometimes other musicians would drop in for rehearsals or impromptu performances for friends and family. I’d sprawl on the floor with my brother, mesmerized by the sometimes fiery sometimes forlorn bluegrass and mountain music they made.

This was long before black metal (or really any kind of extreme metal) existed. I mention it because it may help explain how thoroughly my mind was blown when I first heard Primeval Well‘s self-titled debut album two years ago, though that was probably evident from the run-away words that spilled out of me at the time:

“Primeval Well make you understand what black metal would have sounded like if it had originated along the Mason-Dixon line in America or in the Appalachian mountains, instead of Norway. It swirls and spins, it dances and cavorts, it soars to grandiose heights of sheer ebullience, it takes us under sodden wisteria beneath crescent moons. It unleashes hellfire and black magic, lunacy and seizures, the savage delight found by lean, hard-living people who were given nothing by anyone and found their own pleasures in the devil’s dream, and the woozy somnambulance brought about by corn liquor from the still.”

All this comes back to me because I’ve had my mind blown again, this time by Primeval Well‘s second album, Talkin’ in Tongues with Mountain Spirits, which is set for release on October 20th by Moonlight Cypress Archetypes, and which you will now have a chance to hear for yourselves. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ZETAR — “DEVOURING DARKNESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Oct 142021
 

 

“The Lights of Zetar” was the 18th episode in the third season of Star Trek, originally broadcast in January 1969. It clearly made an impact on R.G., the central Texas musician who chose Zetar as the name of the metal project he created in 2019, choosing to carry forward (as he has written) “the name of a planet of telepaths who’d transcended into a roaming mass of pure psychic energy to curtail their own meteoric extinction”.

Sci-fi inspirations have also carried forward into the band’s striking debut album, Devouring Darkness, for which R.G. enlisted the aid of French vocalist T.P. and Ecuadoran drummer David Lanas to help realize his vision for Zetar. And it is indeed an arresting vision, both thematically and in the unusual and unpredictable amalgam of influences which make their way into the music, including ’90s death metal, synth-laden and thrashing black metal, and classic science fiction scores.

Today we invite you to experience those visions of horror and wonder through our complete premiere stream of Devouring Darkness in advance of its October 15 release by Spirit Coffin Publishing. Continue reading »

HIPPOTRAKTOR – MERIDIAN

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  5 Responses »
Oct 142021
 

(Andy Synn would like to introduce you to the debut album from Hippotraktor, out tomorrow on Pelagic Records, and invites you to leave your prejudices and preconceptions at the door)

I know that the post-Meshuggah breed of Metal bands can provoke some pretty divisive reactions around these parts. And I understand why.

After all, what initially seemed to be fresh and fertile soil for creativity and experimentation quickly became over-saturated with copycats and soundalikes whose music only seemed to grow increasingly sanitised, simplified, and mass-produced for mass-appeal with each successive generation.

But, let’s be honest, that’s the case for most, if not all, styles of music, to one extent or another, and just because the veritable deluge of Djent, Post-Djent, Proto-Djent, and Pseudo-Djent bands reached its saturation point in practically record time doesn’t mean you should dismiss any and all groups who elect to take inspiration from the works of Thordendal, Haake, et al.

I mean, it’s entirely up to you if you want to do that, sure, but you’re potentially robbing yourself of the chance to discover and enjoy a whole plethora of bands whose love of polyrhythmic groove and atmospheric melody transcends the trite tricks and tropes of their more djeneric peers.

Which brings us nicely to Meridian, the debut album from Belgium’s Hippotraktor.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRYSTAL COFFIN — “THE STARWAY ETERNAL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Oct 132021
 

 

Before listening to a note, I loved the idea of Crystal Coffin‘s new album, The Starway Eternal. So let’s begin with that idea, which also helps explain the cover art and the adventurous sensations afforded by the music. As presented in the press materials:

“Cast against the historical realities of the Chernobyl power plant meltdown of 1986, the assumed protagonist – an operator at the power plant – discovers the portalway behind an inoperable console and soon finds that her longing for meaning in this chaotic world answers the opportunity to seek out the purported gods and angels that live among the cosmos in our known solar system.

“To find such entities would be to imbue a sense of importance in our collective existence beyond the daily disorder and existential despair that one accepts. Her trips into various corners of space reveal little to no such beings, and during one such fruitless endeavor, her portalway back to earth is shut permanently; reactor 4 at Chernobyl back on earth has suffered its meltdown during shutdown operation.

“Frantic, she makes the decision to return to earth by falling through the fiery atmosphere as a lonely, final and futile act of desperation. Of course, survival is impossible, and such an act becomes a metaphor for our time, wandering the earth with little connection to anything beyond the physical world”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SUPERSTATIC — “GLIMMERING VEIL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Oct 122021
 

 

Glimmering Veil is the second album by the Irish band Superstatic, and you’ll have difficulty finding a 2021 record that’s as simultaneously unnerving and fascinating. It’s a work of extravagant and unpredictable imagination, labyrinthine in its movements, fantastically textured in its sounds, and both deleterious and awe-inspiring in its moods.

It extends through seven long tracks across one hour and 12 minutes, but never allows the listener’s attention to wander. To borrow from the following review, we can recognize downcast and distraught human emotions in the music, but really, nothing sounds truly eartb-bound.

“Death/doom” is the simplest label one might affix to the music, but it would be an absurdly simplistic label, unless perhaps you add “avant-garde” or “experimental” as another descriptor, as a way of hinting at how wide-ranging the experience becomes.

We have a lot more to say about the album below, but beyond the torrent of linguistic impressions we also have a full stream of the album in advance of its imminent October 15 release by Solitude Productions. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries