NIGHT CROWNED: “IMPIUS VIAM”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 212020
 

 

(Here’s DGR’s review of the new album by the Swedish band Night Crowned, which is out now via Noble Demon Records.)

Night Crowned‘s debut album Impius Viam came out in the tail end of February and it has felt like a musical mental roadblock on this end ever since. We were lucky in being able to cover the band’s premieres at this site and even got their drummer to sit down and talk with us for a bit, yet when the full album came out we never fully sat down to dedicate words to it. Yet it’s been in constant rotation here, an ugly sort of beast clawing at the back of the skull.

The group’s hybridizing of a collective of extreme metal genres — with a heavy ratio of melodic black metal dominating the recipe — seems to have spread like an infection, and in between the spinning of newer releases this year, there’s always that haunting voice in the back of the head with its incessant whisper “what if you gave that Night Crowned disc another listen?” Continue reading »

KUNSTZONE: “EXIT BABYLON”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 182020
 

 

(Kunstzone released a new album last week, and so, like clockwork, we of course have a review of it by DGR, who spares no words.)

I’ve often pitched the Kunstzone project around here as sounding like the results of an ongoing battle between Anaal Nathrakh and Fear Factory. Each disc successfully blurs the lines between the two, in differing ratios depending on how the duo of multi-instrumentalist Alex Rise and Khaozone artist Andy felt at that particular recording session.

Thus, with four discs and a scattering of remix EPs and singles lying in their collective wake, you have a project whose debut release Eschaton Discipline splits about 60/40 in favor of Nathrakh’s brand of madness, and the following releases The Art Of Making The Earth Uninhabitable and Solarborn splitting about 70/30 and 80/20 in that same general direction. Which brings us to the group’s newest album Exit Babylon, which saw release on September 11th of this year. Continue reading »

DRIPPED: “PUTRESCENT OMNISCIENCE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Sep 182020
 

 

(Here’s Vonlughlio’s review of the debut EP by Dripped, which was released in August by Ungodly Ruins Productions.)

So it’s been a while since I’ve done a small review, but life (work and family) has taken a lot of my time, not leaving much to do something I like (writing and promoting music) but overall can’t complain. Anyway, I’m taking the opportunity now to talk about a new project called Dripped (Australia/Ukraine) that was formed back in 2019 with members of Corpseflesh, Septik Piggery, and Cranial Osteotomy.

The band signed to Ungodly Ruins Productions and this past August released their debut EP, Putrescent Omniscience, which consists of six songs that introduce what this new project has to offer — and I have to say that I am loving these 15 minutes of pure force with no fillers. This is an EP that just blew me away at first listen and should get more recognition in the scene. Continue reading »

SUNKEN: “LIVSLEDE”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 172020
 

 

(We present Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Danish black metal band Sunken, set for a September 18 release by Vendetta Records.)

The term “categorical perception” refers to a psychological phenomena whereby human beings tend to separate stimuli – sounds, colours, etc – on a continuum into discrete, distinct categories, as well as how the learning of these categorisations influences our ability to perceive them as we grow up.

It’s a fascinating area, and one I can’t go into fully here (for obvious reasons), but let’s just say that CP is why you sometimes hear people from different countries struggling to differentiate between |r| and |l| sounds, and why different cultures sometimes even see colour differently.

As the smart ones among you might already have guessed, this phenomenon is pretty active in music too, especially when it comes to genre classifications.

For example, where you draw the line between Death Metal that’s “technical” and so-called Technical Death Metal, where you decide that something becomes brutal enough to be called Brutal Death Metal, etc, may be an individual choice on the surface, but it’s also heavily influenced by what you’ve learned, what you’ve been taught by others, and what you’ve been exposed to.

It’s particularly noticeable on the Black Metal spectrum, especially when it comes to asking people to define at what point Black Metal becomes Atmospheric Black Metal becomes Post-Black Metal… with the usual answer being defined more by personal preference than any actual sonic or stylistic properties of the music itself.

But there are always artists/albums who transcend or defy easy categorisation, and whether you like your Black Metal to be “Atmospheric”, “Post-” or pure as the driven snow, Livslede is likely to be exactly what you’re looking for. Continue reading »

LIK: “MISANTHROPIC BREED”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 172020
 

 

(In this writeup TheMadIsraeli provides an enthusiastic recommendation of the new album by the Swedish band LIK, which will be released by Metal Blade Records on September 25th.)

For a good decade now old school Swedish death metal throwback bands have been milking a long beaten-to-death style and aesthetic until it was stripped of the ferocity and angst that gave it have its appeal to begin. Very few of these bands are good.  The style has become victimized by a corporatized sort of nostalgia aping. Instead of bands trying to do things with the style that are forward-thinking or… dare I suggest it… trying to write actually captivating songs full of killer riffs, killer melodies, and a powerful unhinged vocal front, a lot of the music just feels really cynical and pandering.

LIK aren’t one of those bands.  As a matter of fact, I would tell you that since their debut Mass Funeral Invocation in 2015, they have become one of the very few old school Swedish death metal bands that are worth your time.  They have passion, brutality, technicality, drama, and a deep respect for the roots of their sound that so many bands that do this shit just do not have. Continue reading »

CHROME WAVES: “WHERE WE LIVE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 162020
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Chrome Waves, which is set for release on September 25th by Disorder Recordings.)

So far in 2020 there have not been more than a handful of black metal releases that have inspired me to put them in heavy rotation. The sub-genre of depressive black metal has become even more scarce in terms of quality. I find this odd because 2020 has begged for bleaker, darker music. I know I can plug DSBM into the search bar of Bandcamp and find an abundance of poorly programmed drum machines under thin over-processed guitar tones.

This is what makes Chrome Waves‘ new album such a treasure. It sounds great and is as dark and melancholy as I might want when I am taking my meds. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CROSS BRINGER — “THE SIGNS OF SPIRITUAL DELUSION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Sep 162020
 

 

They say you should never judge a book an album by its cover, but when the image is as arresting and enigmatic as the one which adorns this record it’s practically impossible not to.

Are we to take this image as a vision of strength or a study of scars? A meditation on vulnerability, or a celebration of our vitality? Is it about pain and loss, or our ability to resist and to endure, no matter what is thrown at us?

Or is it none of these things. Is it simply about what makes up a body, not just as a conglomeration of flesh and bone, but as a collection of years and experiences which mark us, and shape us, in ways both big and small?

And, if so, what does that say about Cross Bringer and their visceral, venomous debut, which we’re premiering today? Continue reading »

REPUKED: “DAWN OF REINTOXICATION”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 162020
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the forthcoming third album by the Swedish band Repuked, set for release on October 9th by Soulseller Records.)

One of my favorite death metal bands of all time are Austrian grime lords Pungent Stench.  They were a band who were all about writing some of the most grotesque, shamelessly filthy, and perverse death metal possible from both a lyrical and sonic standpoint.  They had a sound that was really all their own. Bands tried to imitate them, but no one has ever quite reaped their influence and managed to make it work well.  I always felt they were kind of the next step up from legendary death masters Autopsy, an evolution.

Repuked is the equivalent to that in relation to Pungent Stench.  A lot of things about their sound line up the same way.  Super-grimy, sludgy, yet buzzsaw guitars, a dedication to a mixture of doom, D-beat and atonal fast-as-fuck viciousness combined with a love of absolutely perverse over-the-top lyrical subject matter.  They offer a kind of death metal that is pretty hard to come by nowadays, the shit that is all about reveling in the darkest aspects of the genre.  Dawn Of Reintoxication, the band’s upcoming record, is quite possibly the most disgustingly impactful brutal death metal record of the whole year. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE LAST REIGN — “EVOLUTION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Sep 152020
 

 

Four years in the making, the new second album by The Last Reign from Buffalo, New York, is now rapidly approaching its September 18 release date. Bearing the title Evolution, it’s a 12-track, 55-minute concept album built around a science-fiction narrative that’s “about the world’s resources being long depleted, sending the human race on a quest for an uncertain future.”

Honestly, though I’m a die-hard sci-fi fan, I’m at the point in my long listening career when I blanch at the thought of a nearly hour-long album. It’s such a rarity when a record of that length has real staying power, and more common, even in generally strong records, to encounter the creeping monotony of sameness or the insertion of sub-par tracks that would have been better left on the cutting room floor. But I’m happy to report that Evolution easily avoids those pitfalls, and instead creates an “edge of your seat” momentum that doesn’t flag. The fact that the band’s chosen field is melodic death metal, a field that’s been well-furrowed to the point of exhaustion, makes the accomplishment all the more impressive. Continue reading »

NAPALM DEATH: “THROES OF JOY IN THE JAWS OF DEFEATISM”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 152020
 

 

(Here’s DGR’s review of the eagerly anticipated new album by Napalm Death, which is set for release by Century Media on September 18th.)

Napalm Death have realized that they are one of those groups whose name and cultural brand makes it so they can do whatever the hell they want musically, and it’s been fun watching the group throw their weight around. The Napalm Death banner extends far beyond just music, as mentioning them raises the specter of grind as a whole genre, and so in one way or another the two have become inextricable. Yet as their career has proven, the band have long aimed past the idea of incredibly short musical tantrums and into realms both far heavier and more violent, and also worlds slower and much more atmospheric.

Apex Predator – Easy Meat was a good example of that sort of musical exploration. It existed like a condensed version of the band’s career and musical tastes in a head-on collision, resulting in a dense package that was all over the map musically but as heavy as a group with the name Napalm Death should be expected to make. Logic Ravaged By Brute Force, released earlier in the year, suggested something different. It contained both the punk-flavored title song and a noisier than hell Sonic Youth cover.

You could glean from that some sense of where the band might be aiming in the future, but their recent comments that they were really leaning in a noise-rock direction with their newest release Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism suggested that the album might be something very different for them. Which makes the release all the more fun because it is a very different exploration of music for the band. Continue reading »

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