ENSLAVED: “IN TIMES”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  13 Responses »
Feb 112015
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Norway’s Enslaved — now with a full-album stream at the end.)

The phrase “The more things change, the more they stay the same” is almost beyond cliché at this point, yet I feel that it still retains some value… as long as you use it in the right place, and at the right time.

Case in point: It seems to apply to Enslaved more than to most bands I can think of, as few other artists seem to have perfected the almost zen-like balance between progress and preservation as the Norwegian natives.

If you see the band live these days you’re likely to hear material from across the length and breadth of their career, from Frost to Monumension to Axioma… all seamlessly integrated and interwoven together… and it’s truly amazing to be able to hear songs like “Allfǫðr Oðinn” and “Death In The Eyes of Dawn” next to one another in the same setlist, forcing you to realise that no matter how far they’ve come or how much they’ve progressed over the years, Enslaved are still very much the same band they always were at heart, and that there’s no era or element of their sound that doesn’t represent who they are. Continue reading »

MASTERY: “VALIS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Feb 102015
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the debut album by a unique black metal band from the Bay Area named Mastery.)

Looking into 2015, I figured it was going to be a slow January for me, and here I sit with an absurd number of bands to write about, one of whom is a California one-man black metal act called Mastery and its first full-length, VALIS — an obvious nod to Philip K. Dick, one of my favorite authors of all time. Islander wrote about the absolutely massive and maddening 17+ minute album opener entitled “V.A.L.I.S.V.E.S.S.E.L”, but that’s just the beginning. Sole member Ephemeral Domignostika must be operating on a totally different demented level because Mastery is unlike any other black metal band I’ve ever heard. Once you hear the album, it becomes baffling to conceive that all of this was performed by one person playing every instrument and performing all the vocals, too.

Mastery’s greatest strength lies in its chaotic and stitched-together-sounding nature. It all coalesces together in spite of its choppy flow and the endless stream of new sections spitting forth from the vale. I don’t think I’ve ever heard black metal taken to such a furious zenith of intensity. It almost shouldn’t work — the swirling mix and match between old school black metal riffing, angular grooves, tortured dissonance, bizarre, almost mathy riffs, surprise interludes, alien warped lead guitar clusters, and the absolutely off-the-wall way it all comes together in one massive swirling murk. Continue reading »

INTO INFERNUS: “THE END OF EDEN”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Feb 092015
 

(DGR reviews the second album by Into Infernus from Tampa, Florida.)

Sometimes you come across a band via Facebook surfing after bouncing between various band pages to the point where you don’t remember where you started. Into Infernus is one of those cases for me; I’m not sure who directly pointed me to them, but I found myself enjoying enough to share — even three months out from their album’s release.

Heavy metal as a genre is one that has embraced the idea of a concept album countless times over the years. Any other genre of music can do that, and many have plenty of examples, but it feels like heavy metal has had a lot of them just due to the theatrical aspect of the music. It often feels like bands sit around with regular concept discs and go, “Alright, now what if it was way heavier”, or, as some would argue, it feels like these groups are using the cathartic aspect of heavy metal, with all its screaming, fast-tempo songs, and heavy grooves, to really tell some dark stories. Continue reading »

BARISHI: “ENDLESS HOWL”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 092015
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new EP by Barishi from Vermont.)

It was April of last year when I first stumbled upon the self-titled debut by these Prog-Metal ne’er do wells, and by that point their debut was already over four months old. If you’ve read my review (here), you’ll know that I was very much entranced by their unapologetic weirdness and aggressively schizophonic sound, drawing comparisons, at various points, to bands like Intronaut and Poison The Well (amongst others), in an attempt to accurately characterise and situate their cunningly kaleidoscopic Prog-Metal/Hardcore fusion.

So imagine my surprise upon discovering that the band have just released a follow-up in the form of the Endless Howl EP, along with my pleasure when I realised that this time at least, I wouldn’t be so far behind the curve in reviewing it! Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: 6:33 — “DEADLY SCENES”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Feb 082015
 

(Austin Weber reviews the latest album from the French band 6:33.)

Love them or hate them, Mr. Bungle has had an undeniably large impact on the music world. They re-defined progressive music in the modern era by conjoining various kinds of metal with an ever-changing array of other music styles. After their break-up, the members went on to other bizarre and out-there acts such as Fantomas, Tomahawk, and Secret Chiefs 3. It’s from within this branch of oddball musical eccentricity that the French band 6:33 draw liberally on their newly released record, Deadly Scenes.

But upon closer inspection and several listens, it becomes evident that they’ve made some tweaks to this type of Dog Fashion Disco sound, and while sometimes it sounds too close to Mr. Bungle, Deadly Scenes is often brilliantly original. And in addition to playing in the vein of Mr. Bungle, their is a recurring, almost-Devin–Townsend vibe going on that really works in their favor. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: THE WHOREHOUSE MASSACRE — “ALTAR OF THE GOAT SKULL / VI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 082015
 

 

The Whorehouse Massacre have been churning out catastrophic heaviness from the bowels of British Columbia since roughly 2005, with almost a dozen short releases, one full-length album, and a live recording to their credit. On February 20, Transcending Obscurity will release a compilation of the band’s most recent EPs under the title Altar of the Goat Skull / VI. It comes as a precursor to the band’s next album, which will be released by the same label, and at the end of this post you’ll have the opportunity to hear it in full.

But if you’re not already familiar with this band’s brand of sludge, I should probably warn you: Listening to this album all the way through risks severe spinal compression, concussion, bleeding in the brain, black eyes, and gradual suffocation. It’s a low, slow death inflicted by pulverizing riffs and gut-punching percussion. About the only light that escapes this maw of darkness are the sparks that come from the crash of cymbals. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PORTA NIGRA — “FEMME FATALE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Feb 082015
 

 

Thanks to a Facebook post from KevinP, I learned that on Friday Debemur Morti Productions released a new digital single by the German duo known as Porta Nigra. It consists of a new song named “Femme Fatale”, which will appear on the band’s second album Kaiserschnitt (due for release later this year), and a remix of “Megalomaniac” from the band’s excellent debut album Fin de Siècle. The remix was prepared by T.T. of the Austrian black metal band Abigor.

There are some truly hair-raising screams and some jagged growls in “Femme Fatale”, but it’s also an exception to our rule, as you’ll discover. You will also discover a dark, decadent, mid-paced rocker that’s powerfully infectious — the song’s central riff is licensed to kill, and there’s a cool, squalling solo in it, too. Continue reading »

FINSTERFORST: “MACH DICH FREI”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Feb 042015
 

 

(Our guest Booker reviews the new album by Finsterforst.)

One of the unique features of this fascinating piece of technological architecture we call ‘the internet’ is the way in which information becomes searchable, indexed, codified and filed away in virtual perpetuity. And as we all know, that can be terrifying when used to spy and pry into people’s lives, or when someone logs into your Amazon account and finds out about that copy of ‘Bronies’ you bought (http://youtu.be/ohnuyqJyEW0)…… yeah, um, that happened to… a friend….

But for someone like me with more memory problems than the guy from Memento, it’s a glorious reminder of ‘how the fuck did I find out about this band?’. Case in point — I can pinpoint the first time the hammering tones of Finsterforst graced my earholes, as this post featured the ‘Nichts als Asche’ video from their previous album Rastlos. And after a few google searches, it was clear the 5-minute odd video was effectively the ‘radio edit’ version (or would that be ‘youtube edit’?) of the 12-minute opening track of the album. Color me intrigued.

Ever since, Rastlos had me hooked with its blend of folk metal, mixed with some strong orchestral influences, traditional Germanic singing, and a touch of Neue Deutsche Härte influence.  And now, a touch over two years later, Finsterforst offer us the follow-up Mach Dich Frei. Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: ESCHER — “THE GROUND IS MISSING”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Feb 042015
 

(Austin Weber reviews a new EP by Escher from Raleigh, North Carolina.)

It’s been very interesting to witness the influence Between The Buried And Me has had on the scene. Because of their eclecticism, few if any have tried to truly copy them, but instead have taken cues from their songwriting style and their ideas about how to make aggressively focused yet complex, progressive-minded metal. Joining the pack of new-school prog metal in this vein are the Raleigh, North Carolina band Escher. One can only guess and hope that their name is a nod to the famed Dutch artist M.C. Escher.

The band just dropped an impressive new EP called The Ground Is Missing on January 20th. As suggested above, they owe a big songwriting debt to Between The Buried And Me, and to some degrees a stylistic one as well. Where they’ve made the music their own, though, is in a way similar to the path followedfellow young progsters The Odious — by infusing their key influence with snippets from technical death metal, earth-shaking deathcore, and a few djent-y chugs. Continue reading »

VENOM: “FROM THE VERY DEPTHS”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Feb 042015
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by Venom.)

One of those bands whose name alone makes them legends. They often get credited for creating black metal, due to an album called, well… Black Metal. As a kid I took down their poster upon realizing they only used satanic imagery as a gimmick, like Slayer (and finding out Slayer were not satanists was like finding out Santa Claus wasn’t real). So this album puts Venom in the hot seat as it’s time to once again prove themselves.

The last album I paid attention to was Prime Evil which came out in ’89. This had “Demolition Man” on it rather than Cronos. So Venom really came to an end after Resurrection, and this is more of a Cronos solo album than a Venom album. The rest of the band is Danny Needham, who also bangs the skins for Tony Martin, and guitarist Stuart Dixon from Order of the Black Sun. Of course, using the Venom name is smarter than calling this Cronos. No one will buy a Cronos shirt, but you better bet they will be buying Venom shirts. Continue reading »

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