Album Reviews Archives - Page 379 of 576

LIFE, STRUGGLE, AND INTENSITY — THE WORLD OF VRASUBATLAT

Aug 182016

(We are happy to have Kaptain Carbon back with us. On this visit, he helps to commemorate the 10th release of a label called Vrasubatlat. Kaptain Carbon operates Tape Wyrm, a blog dedicated to current and lesser-known heavy metal. He also writes Dungeon Synth reviews over at Hollywood Metal as well as moderating Reddit’s r/metal community.)

It is no secret Vrasubatlat has recently become one of my recent favorite labels and collectives of bands. If you read my previous column on some of my favorite demos of 2016, you will see a glowing endorsement at the top of the page. It is only because this label keeps putting out music that I keep wanting to write about. Once they stop, I will stop as well. I do not know what to tell you. There is just something appealing about music when it feels like an open wound.

This article is to celebrate Vrasubatlat’s tenth release in two years, as well as introduce others to the wild and hellish world of black / death with social issues. Continue reading »

CITY: “ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Aug 172016

(Andy Synn reviews the debut album of City from Portland, Oregon.)

You either stand on the shoulders of giants, or else you languish in their shadow… is a phrase I’ve just made up and trademarked. So don’t try and steal it. Particularly because I need it to help give this review a sense of purpose and direction.

You see, when it comes to music it does often seem like your choices are reduced to a binary “yes/no”. You either innovate or you imitate. You follow or you lead. You simply copy your influences, or you create something new out of them.

But life, as always, isn’t really that black and white. Everything’s a spectrum, everything’s a scale, and very little in this world is really quite as absolute as it seems.

Case in point, while Portland-based Prog-Metal types City are undeniably still living in the shadows of their forefathers on their debut album On The Edge of Forever, it’s still a solidly rewarding listen in its own right, and displays more than enough promise and potential to suggest that this isn’t a state of affairs that’s going to last forever. Continue reading »

MORROW: “COVENANT OF TEETH”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Aug 152016

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by London’s Morrow.)

By not seeking to live off of post-apocalyptic distortion alone this London-based sludge band captures an atmosphere almost as mournful as a doom band.

Past affiliations have led to characterizations of Morrow as a crust super-group. Crust seems to be a hot buzzword when it comes to underground metal these days. The only time I hear this crusty side of the band is when they speed up with more punk energy toward the end of the first song, “Fathom”. They take their time getting started, as it’s 4 minutes in before the drums lay the ground-work to the melancholy. The cello on this song really adds more emotion. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: SCOUR — “SCOUR”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 9 Responses »

Aug 152016

(DGR reviews the debut EP by Scour.)

There is no doubt that the reason the Scour EP and its mid-July release landed on most metal fans’ radar due to the presence of one Phil Anselmo trying his hand at extreme metal. Phil has proven himself to be a polarizing figure this year via one very particular scandal, and it is still not clear whether he thought he was being funny making a racist joke or if he is a fucking gigantic moron.

He seemed penitent enough when the inevitable backlash occurred, pretty much making it clear that if he was proving to be an obstacle to any of the bands he was in, he was willing to leave. But it makes you wonder if these events had any sort of effect on the lead-up to the Scour EP’s mid-July release. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS (DESPISED ICON, KING, VALE OF PNATH)

Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus 2 Responses »

Aug 122016

(Andy Synn returns again to his irregular series of album reviews in haiku. Three reviews of three lines each come after the jump. With music, of course.)

It seems like almost everyone and their mothers are off to Migration Fest or Bloodstock this weekend, but I’ve taken it upon myself to ensure that our faithful readership aren’t left wanting. How good am I?

Anyway, we’ve got three new albums this time around, covering Canada, Australia, and the good old US of A (respectively)! Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: IMPURE CONSECRATION, ACANTHROPHIS, YONDER

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 4 Responses »

Aug 112016

In a few hours I’ll be flying along I-5 south, down to Olympia for Migration Fest. Okay, who am I kidding. It’s I-5 southbound from Seattle during daylight, which means I’ll be crawling like a slug. Anyway, before beginning that slimy crawl I thought I would package together some lamentably brief reviews for four recent EPs that have brought me much pleasure in recent weeks. They all deserve more elaborate and articulate praise, but fortunately they will all speak well for themselves through the complete music streams now available on Bandcamp.

IMPURE CONSECRATION

To begin this quartet of treats, we have a California band named Impure Consecration. They’ve been in the news recently because of a new 7″ EP named Succumb To Impurity Fire released (here) by Blood Harvest Records at the end of July. However, in January of this year they also released a previous EP entitled Consumed By the Venomous Curse, and that’s the one that first drew me to the band. Continue reading »

NECRONAUTICAL: “THE ENDURANCE AT NIGHT”

Album Reviews 11 Responses »

Aug 112016

(DGR wrote this review of the new album by the UK’s Necronautical.)

Let’s lay all our cards on the table up-front here. I was very excited when England’s Necronautical announced a follow-up disc to their album Black Sea Misanthropy. I genuinely enjoyed the nautical-themed group’s debut full-length, and for a while was worried that they wouldn’t do another after they went radio-silent for a brief spell.

I was actually introduced to the band via a review of that album on this very site by our own Andy Synn. Though I am loathe to admit this in public, as the man’s ego hardly needs any more inflating, and knowing that he was right about a recommendation might just provide more reason for it. His homeland may not be sure what part of the planet it wants to be located on at this moment, but I don’t need it to literally float off the map via Andy Synn‘s head-shaped balloon.

Black Sea Misanthropy was a symphonic black metal disc and, as the name implied (as well as the band’s own name), it focused heavily on ships, the ocean, and the brutality involved in many of those sea-going adventures. It was at times thrashy, full-blown death metal, raging and teeth-bared symphonic death, and frustratingly catchy (look, years out and I still get chunks of “Ghosts Of Men” stuck in my head), so I had high hopes for the band to have a follow-up. The Endurance At Night is that follow-up. Released in the middle of July, it continues the band’s nautical explorations but manages to do so in a much more mature package, one that shares a lot of similarities with its predecessor but also comes off much more fierce. The two years between discs have given Necronautical enough time to come up with one hell of a record. Continue reading »

IN THE WOODS…: “PURE”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Aug 112016

(Andy Synn reviews the first album in 17 years by Norway’s In the Woods….)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last several years you’ll probably have noticed the surprising upswing in the number of legendary Metal bands making an unexpected return to the scene. From At The Gates to Extol, from Carcass to Gorguts, and beyond, there seems to have been a sudden surge in how many of the “big” names (relatively speaking) have decided to mount their long-awaited comeback… often to greater, and much-deserved, commercial and critical acclaim than they originally received the first time around.

With a 17-year gap separating the release of their last full-length (1999’s Strange in Stereo) from their imminent return, In The Woods… don’t quite hold the record for longest time between albums (of their peers mentioned above, that honour goes to At The Gates with their 19-year intermission between Slaughter of the Soul and 2014’s At War With Reality), but I have no hesitation in stating that Pure more than deserves to be mentioned in the same reverent tones reserved for Surgical Steel, Colored Sands, et al. Continue reading »

WITHERSCAPE: “THE NORTHERN SANCTUARY”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Aug 092016

(DGR provides this extended review of the new second album by Sweden’s Witherscape.)

Witherscape’s debut album The Inheritance is one of those albums where I’m not sure where the internet fell on it as a whole. Usually you can get a pretty good sense of the fan consensus around albums a while after release, once we’ve all gotten off of the shiny new high and hindsight takes over. But The Inheritance is one of those rare albums where it seems like some folks really loved it and others were content to look at it as an interesting experiment with some odd quirks. I fell into the latter camp.

I thought The Inheritance had some incredible highs but overall it felt a bit like Witherscape were throwing caution to the wind, which is an awesome thing for a new project, but by the same token it also means that some parts just don’t work together. However, with a release like that comes the ability to analyze what really worked for you and what didn’t. If done correctly, a followup disc could make a band like this sound stronger than ever before and really execute upon the premise that (in this case) Witherscape was founded upon — which admittedly, I’m not quite sure of to this day. Continue reading »

KVLTHAMMER: “OATH”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Aug 092016

(T0dd Manning prepared this review of the new album by Indiana’s Kvlthammer.)

Extreme Metal nowadays draws from such an amazingly diverse range of influences that one would be forgiven for forgetting its essential roots in pure Rock and Roll fury, but there are always bands there to remind us of the vitality of the stripped-down approach. Indianapolis-based maniacs Kvlthammer are one such act and their latest opus Oath is a powerful statement of straight-for-the-throat Metal that any self-respecting Metalhead would do well not to pass by.

Album opener “Don’t Try” lays down the framework quite nicely with its mash-up of Motörhead and Discharge, with sprinklings of Sludge and tons of nice twin-guitar work. From there, each track touches upon so many classic elements while establishing its own niche at the same time. One might spot moments of Celtic Frost butting up against Venom and Kill’em All-era Metallica, and occasionally more current bands such as Goatwhore, Craft, and Darkthrone exert their influence as well. Continue reading »

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