A DOUBLE REVIEW (PART 1): BERZERKER LEGION — “OBLITERATE THE WEAK”

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Mar 192020
 

 

(DGR turned in a double-review, but in his own inimitable fashion he wrote so many words about each of the two albums that your humble editor decided to split it in two, and the second review will be posted a bit later today.)

Over the many years that we’ve spent in our comfortable little corner of the internet, one of the things we’ve learned how to get real good at is identifying genre-fare: the sort of musical red meat where it is clear the crew behind them just want to add to the overall cauldron that is their music of choice. Not necessarily the most ambitious or ‘paradigm changing’ — though the times where a group lands on that sort of lightning-in-a-bottle formula is always great — but music that is enjoyable for what it is, well-executed within the blueprint of its chosen genre.

One of the examples of this which practically fuels this website is the sort of rock-stupid, pulsating thud of death metal that gets by purely by appealing to the early cave-dweller parts of our brain, and another is the type of music that is so predisposed to headbanging guitar work that you can’t help but want to tag along, whether or not you have the long hair for it.

In today’s case it’s weird that these two albums feel like catching up a bit, since these two projects share a vocalist whom we’ve written about numerous times before and both of them are right in that wheelhouse described above. One is more modern and melody-focused despite its overall insistence on how world-ending it paints its protagonists in the songs, and the other is flavored with apocalyptic flair but with the chainsaw guitar aimed at a more old-school crowd. And thus we find ourselves catching up with Berzerker Legion and a crew more familiar to our site’s readers, Wombbath. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RAIDER — “GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 182020
 

 

Straight out of Waterloo, Ontario comes the ferocious death/thrashing band Raider, who in very short order have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with, with nitroglycerine in their veins, demons in their heads, and the kind of machine precision in their execution that only makes their mayhem more electrifying.

They popped a lot of eyes wide open with their 2018 demo, Urge to Kill, and opened more eyes when they followed that with festival appearances at Hamilton Deathfest, Guelph Deathfest, and Kitchener Metalfest. What they’ve now done, however, is even more explosive. We’re talking about their debut album, Guardian of the Fire, which will be released on March 20th. The singles released so far from the album have already generated a lot of excitement, but now we’ve got the full thrill-ride for you as we premiere a stream of the entire record. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: ABYSMAL DAWN, CENTINEX, COGNITIVE, COOLING TOWER, DEATH COURIER, DEVIN TOWNSEND, EVOKER, GRAVEIR, HELLHOOKAH, KRATER, LAMB OF GOD, LAUDARE, MALICYST, WHITE STONES

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Mar 182020
 


Abysmal Dawn

 

Here we are again. with so many new songs and videos that I want to recommend that I’m resorting to what I did last weekend — compiling lots of sights and sounds (which are all over the map in genre terms), accompanied by only very brief comments of my own. I also added one news item that excited me, though there’s no music to be heard yet.

I should add that I hope you are all well, and that you’re doing your damnedest to physically stay away from other people to the greatest extent possible.

ABYSMAL DAWN (U.S.)

We begin with a jackhammering, shivering, and slithering piece of death metal menace, complete with thoroughly beastly vocals and twisted melodic accents and grooves that both prove to be ridiculously catchy. I could swear they actually used a heavy-caliber machibe gun instead of drums for parts of this, and that they tortured a poltergeist for the solos. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: BOG WRAITH / MÆRE / PHALANX / SUTRAH / SVENGAHLI

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 162020
 

 

(Andy Synn has decided to collect in one place reviews of five recently released EPs that have provoked very enthusiastic responses. Lots of very good stuff here.)

After spending a significant amount of time last week covering some massive (some might say excessive) double-albums, I thought it might be nice to kick things off this week with a bunch of shorter releases, all of which sit somewhere along the ever-widening spectrum of Death Metal.

So whether you’re looking for something brutal and breakdown-heavy, something crusty and crushing, or something teched-out and transcendent, there should be something for everyone here. Continue reading »

SPECTRAL LORE / MARE COGNITUM – “WANDERERS: ASTROLOGY OF THE NINE”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 132020
 

 

(We present Andy Synn‘s review of the ambitious new double album created by Mare Cognitum (California) and Spectral Lore (Greece), which is being released today by I, Voidhanger Records and features cover art by Elijah Tamu.)

Call me a glutton for punishment, but not only is this the second double-album I’m reviewing this week, but it’s actually even longer than the first one!

What makes it different (very different, in fact) is that rather than being the product of just one band’s vision, Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine (and that’s the last time I’m going to be typing that in full) is a split-release from two artists, Spectral Lore and Mare Cognitum, each of whom contributes a full album’s worth of blistering blackened riffage and eerie, extraterrestrial atmosphere.

But wait, there’s more! Not only is the album arranged very differently to a traditional split – instead of grouping the songs by band they’re arranged (mostly) in an alternating pattern, loosely following the order of the planets in our solar system – but the final two tracks are in fact the result of a collaborative effort designed to fuse the best parts of both artists into one collective whole.

Of course, the problem with shooting for the stars is that there’s a lot that can go wrong out there in the formless void… so the question is, have Spectral Lore and Mare Cognitum found a way to boldly go where no band has gone before, or is this one giant leap too far? Continue reading »

HEAVEN SHALL BURN: “OF TRUTH & SACRIFICE”

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Mar 112020
 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by German’s Heaven Shall Burn. It’s set for release on March 20th by Century Media and features cover art by Eliran Kantor.)

Heaven Shall Burn are, undeniably, one of my favourite bands,, and it sometimes seems like their instantly recognisable, and instinctively appealing, brand of “Death Metal-core” – equal parts Bolt Thrower, Earth Crisis, and Kreator – was tailor-made just for me.

Of course I’m far from alone in my love for the band, whose crossover potential means that they could just as easily hit the stage alongside Cannibal Corpse as Code Orange, Unleashed or Unearth, Darkest Hour or Dismember, and comfortably hold their own, and sometimes it seems like the only thing preventing them from a major, mainstream breakout is their stubborn refusal to compromise their ethics, or dilute their heaviness, to suit the demands or expectations of others.

Still, I have to admit that when the band announced that their next record was going to be a double-album I was a little bit sceptical. Continue reading »

DEADSPACE: “A PORTRAIT OF SACRIFICIAL SCARS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Mar 092020
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the final album by the Australian black metal band Deadspace, released on March 2nd.)

It’s always sad when a band you love announces that they’re calling it a day, especially when the band in question are currently producing the best work of their career.

Such is the case with Australian Black Metal crew Deadspace, who recently declared that, due to a variety of reasons, this year would be their last as an active band.

Before their final dissolution, however, they’ve thrown themselves into a flurry of activity, including multiple national and international tour dates (they recently performed their last ever show in their home country and are set to begin an EU tour alongside Lebenssucht at the end of this month) as well as the release of their sonic swansong, A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars, just last week.

And, let me tell you, if the band truly does have to come to an end this year, then they couldn’t have asked for a better way to bring down the curtain. Continue reading »

TORPËDO: “MECHANIC TYRANTS”

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Mar 092020
 

 

(We present Todd Manning‘s review of the 2019 debut demo by Germany’s Torpëdo, which was reissued last month by Gates of Hell Records.)

Gates of Hell Records is a subsidiary of Cruz Del Sur Music dedicated to bringing the best of Old School Heavy Metal to the world, and they’ve certainly found a prime candidate in the form of Germany’s Torpëdo. The label reissued the band’s demo Mechanic Tyrants on February 21st, complete with new cover art that captures the spirit of the Speed Metal vibes contained within.

The first thing that is apparent when “Maniac” comes ripping out of the speakers is the band’s ability to successfully blend the raucous sound of early Motörhead with Kill’em All-era Metallica. The album was recorded by the band themselves in a basement and it even captures the sound of that bygone time perfectly. Gritty but clear and powerful. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: APOGNOSIS, HRÆ , VENOMOUS SKELETON, ADAESTUO, SCHWERMUT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  10 Responses »
Mar 082020
 

 

For this week’s edition of the column I decided to include five complete releases, four albums and an EP, all but one of them released since late January. But my time is short, and so, with apologies to the bands, the only way I’ve been able to manage this is to pursue a strategy of picking only one song per release to focus on, accompanied by just the most general overview of everything else. With luck, this will be enough to seduce people into exploring each release in greater depth, despite the relative shallowness of my own words.

APOGNOSIS

The Greek black metal band Adaestuo is one of two in today’s feature whose past work I was familiar with, and that past work — a self-titled demo in 2016, the Phase 6 debut album that same year, and the Cult of Human Sacrifices EP in 2018 — has been remarkably impressive. The new release is an album entitled Dominion In Polarity. It came out last September, and I really should have written something about it before now, because it’s tremendous. Continue reading »

BLACK METAL BONANZA: BLAZE OF PERDITION, GLACIATION, GRIMAH, IZTHMI, KVAEN, SOPHIST, WORTHLESS

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Mar 062020
 

 

(In this post you’ll find a collection of reviews by Andy Synn, focusing on seven black metal albums released during the first two months of the year.)

It’s now just over two months into 2020 and I am already ridiculously behind when it comes to covering new albums.

That’s a particularly galling admission to make considering how great some of the records you’re about to read about are, many of which I’ve been listening to religiously since the start of the year but which, for various reasons, I’ve not gotten around to writing about before now.

Still, the advantage of grouping all these records/reviews together is that if you happen to already like one (or more) of these artists already then there’s every chance you’re going to discover something else to love too.

So, without further ado… Continue reading »

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