PYRRHON: “THE MOTHER OF VIRTUES”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Apr 082014
 

(In this post BadWolf reviews the new album by Pyrrhon.)

Let’s talk about PR for a moment. Brooklyn outfit Pyrrhon have a pretty darn good PR outlet—one of the best when it comes to metal, in fact, and even they are having trouble pitching the band’s new album, The Mother of Virtues. In one email, they described the record as “Investigational Death Metal,” which is a patently ridiculous descriptor. First, how can music be investigational? I read it and think of True Detective, not riffs and blast beats. It isn’t as if listening to Pyrrhon will answer any mysteries in your life. In fact, it’s more likely to raise some serious questions, if you’re willing to listen. Second, I’m not entirely sure I’d call Pyrrhon a death metal band.

Which isn’t to say they’re doing a bad job. Quite to the contrary, Pyrrhon’s sophomore LP is earning rave reviews, and will probably end up on quite a few year-end lists, as well it should. The issue is that Pyrrhon’s sound is so out there that succinctly describing it is difficult.

It’s a difficult task for me, in particular, because Pyrrhon’s vocalist and lyricist, Doug Moore, is a friend, as well as my supervisor at Invisible Oranges. The details of our relationship, and a more in-depth disclaimer, precede my interview with Moore. Continue reading »

THY DISEASE: “THE COSTUME OF TECHNOCRACY”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 072014
 

(DGR reviews the sixth studio album by Poland’s Thy Disease, released in February 2014.)

Industrial hybrid genres are an oddball entity to write about when it comes to heavy metal. Often it feels like bands don’t have enough industrial elements and at other times it feels like those are are overwhelming the others to the extent that the remaining piece of the descriptor might as well not even be there. There are people who do get it correct, but it seems to have become the go-to for any band that adds some distorted whirs, buzzes, keyboards, and such, that they wind up with an “industrial” in front of their name.

Industrial Death often finds itself in that weird push-pull dynamic, having morphed into a groove-focused genre with very little of the actual death metal side present — namely, just growled vocals  and the occasional blast-beat battering. It’s also a very wide genre that has become a huge umbrella term for bands who might otherwise be characterized as symphonic or something else entirely. Long story short, it’s hard to tell if seeing a band described as Industrial Death Metal actually means anything at first glance, other than allowing you to infer that at some point there will be electronics in the mix.

Poland’s Thy Disease are one such band, a group who have adopted the “industrial death metal” descriptor as part of their image, playing up the “music made by and for Terminators” aspect of it while incorporating many of the aforementioned groove-heavy and instantly neck-bobbing riffs in their music. The band have been long-time staples of my personal Last.fm recommendations — one of the groups that I feel like I’ve listened to more on that site despite having a copy of Anshur-Za (their 2009 release) lying around in my house. Continue reading »

THREE KINGS: ENTHRONED, INFESTUS, HORIZON ABLAZE (AND AN NCS PREMIERE)

 Album Reviews, Premieres  8 Responses »
Apr 072014
 

(In one fell swoop, Andy Synn reviews three superb new albums — by Enthroned, Infestus, and Horizon Ablaze — and we bring you the streaming premiere of a song from Horizon Ablaze.)

It may only be early April but 2014 has already produced numerous candidates for my own personal End of Year list/s. And it looks like it’s going to be a very bleak, blackened year indeed.

So, to highlight the wealth of majestic misanthropy that has already appeared this year, I’ve selected three examples of Black Metal at its finest, three albums that richly deserve to be feared and worshipped in their own right, three artists who may yet lay claim to the crooked crown.

Each one has its own allure, its own character, from the uncompromising, to the unknowable, to the unorthodox. Each one has its own voice and style, from the demonic, to the despairing, to the deranged. Yet each one is united by an undercurrent of remorseless passion and refusal to follow the path of others. Each one a visceral, violent, dissonantly melodic and brutally infectious example of blackened musical magick. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: VERBERIS — “VASTITAS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Apr 062014
 

Germany’s Iron Bonehead label has unearthed yet another seething snakepit of blackened death metal, this time from the deceptively beautiful land of New Zealand. The band’s name is Verberis and their debut demo is Vastitas.

With a bit of googling, I learned that “Vastitis” is a Latin word that variously means “wasteland”, “desolation”, and “immensity” or “vastness”. It’s a fitting title for this four-song offering. The music is cold, inhuman, and brutally destructive, with a style that falls somewhere in the plague-ridden landscape between Incantation and Mitcochondrion. The songs are driven by a raging storm of thrashing, low-pitched riffs and thundering, blasting percussion, with the only breaks coming in brief moments of solo bass grinding, eerie ambient conclusions, and a dirge-like segment in the last track, “Fangs of Pazuzu”.

Suppurating lead guitar melodies surface here and there, and the gargantuan echo-chamber roars and howls of the vocalist are reminiscent of Craig Pillard in his Onward To Golgotha days. While full-speed destruction is the name of this game, if you listen closely, you’ll notice a fair amount of flashy fretwork, changing guitar styles, and occasional bouts of drum acrobatics. Every now and then the band will also veer into a convulsive groove (my favorite of those moments coming from the pulsating melody that ends “Kaliginous Ascent”). Continue reading »

NOCTEM: “EXILIUM”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 042014
 

(In this post DGR reviews the new album by Spain’s Noctem.)

Spain’s Noctem are one of those bands that, in my mind, have improved with each album throughout their career. Every disc has been better than the last, and the band — often feeling especially scrappy due to a staunch refusal to give any ground on their aesthetics and lyrical themes — have always found ways to contort their music to fit the blisteringly fast, fire-hot riffing of their blackened death metal. Noctem have had a penchant for sounding like a huge band over the years and, through whatever means of sorcery, have always managed to incorporate high production values in their music and videos. As their career has progressed, their preference for the epic and grandiose has increased, moving them into murkier waters with regard to genre but always keeping things exciting.

Divinity was my starting point for the band. I found the disc to be a massive slab of death metal, almost like a granite rock falling upon the listener, going from zero to one hundred in the blink of an eye and then staying there for the whole album. Definitely good for a super-quick hit, but a full listen could sometimes get arduous and you really had to be in the mood for it. The followup, Oblivion, rectified a lot of that whilst also making the move from song to song more dynamic. It was on the strength of that disc that I found myself excited for the March release of Exilium.

Even though a bit of time has passed since the disc was released, the delay in writing about it is largely because we’ve really been savoring the album over at NCS. It is, once again, a marked improvement over the group’s previous albums that also sees quite a few smaller experiments paying huge dividends for the full listening experience. Continue reading »

FALLS OF RAUROS / PANOPTICON SPLIT: A REVIEW AND AN NCS PREMIERE

 Album Reviews, Premieres  11 Responses »
Apr 032014
 

I first learned that Falls of Rauros and Panopticon would be joining forces for a split release back in December 2013, when Panopticon’s Austin Lunn accepted our invitation to write an article about his favorite releases from 2013. It’s a natural pairing. There is, for example, a deep mutual respect between the two bands. Austin Lunn wrote in that same article that Falls of Rauros are his “favorite current American band” and that their forthcoming 2014 full-length (Believe In No Coming Shore) “may be my favorite record ever”, and Falls of Rauros have called Panopticon’s forthcoming album “absolutely massive and stunning on all levels”.

Beyond the respect they have for each other, both bands have earned the respect of both critics and a dedicated following of fans: they are both quintessential American black metal bands, and not just because they happen to be based in Maine and (at least temporarily) Minnesota, respectively. They have successfully incorporated American folk traditions into their powerful and emotionally resonant music, so much so that you could call them American folk metal bands instead of black metal bands and I wouldn’t argue with you.

Yet you may be surprised by what you hear on the new split, as compared the sounds captured on each of the bands’ last albums and on the albums to come. Panopticon’s tracks are unquestionably an homage to Norwegian black metal traditions, while Falls of Rauros have, if anything, brought even more vibrant life and light into their songs. You’ll get a chance to hear both styles of music on display as we premiere one song by each band from this excellent split. Continue reading »

MALADIE: “PLAGUE WITHIN”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Apr 022014
 

(For our third review of the day, Austin Weber discusses the debut album by Germany’s Maladie.)

How does one accurately capture the essence of a brilliant work of musical art? Certainly there are many ways, a variety of different approaches, different attempts to quantify opinion, while hopefully eschewing the concept of good-because-it’s-good, and bad-because-it’s-bad. But at the end of the day, words are merely words, and what’s captured by the ear and experienced in the mind and soul from a truly brilliant piece of music is what matters. The following words only exist as a vessel with which to extend an invitation to agree or disagree with how I feel, in this case, about Maladie.

Maladie are a 9-piece German metal group, a band I came across a few months back when doing one of my usual deep searches within the bowels of Metal-Archives.com. But to be precise, only 6 people play on Plague Within, as they added, improved, and altered into a  9-man line-up after Plague Within was released. At first I only intended to include them on my “Remnants of 2013” article (coming soon!) with a brief write-up, but then I came to the conclusion that I wanted to write a full review after becoming obsessed with “1979” (which is basically the exact opposite of the Smashing Pumpkins song, lest anyone like me think of that initially as well).

The guitar-work here is damned impressive — and comes as no surprise, since one of their guitarists, Mark Walther, plays in Spheron and their other guitarist, Björn Köppler, is a member of Tombthroat. Their triple vocal attack is intense, with Alexander Wenz and Déhà scraping their throats performing a range of metal vocals and Bernd Wener stepping in at all the right points with triumphant, fitting, clean singing during both furious passages and also in the expected slower and progressive points. Continue reading »

FLAGITIOUS IDIOSYNCRASY IN THE DILAPIDATION: “WALLOW”

 Album Reviews, Phro's Posts  1 Response »
Apr 022014
 

(I’m getting all weepy remembering the days when our Tokyo-based comrade Phro used to write his inimitable reviews for NCS. But after something of a reviewing hiatus at his own web site — PhroMetal — the review you’re about to read appeared there a couple days ago. When I saw it, I convinced him to let me re-publish it here. And I’m not alone in having a shitload of fun reading it. The band liked it too.)

Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation (in close running for the label “greatest grindcore band in the world”) have a new batch of their 2013 EP Wallow ready for our hot, waiting ears. So, I thought I’d take the opportunity to write about it. The is what it sounds like (and, because pictures are fun, what it looks like, too).

********

A deep growl explodes from the ground beneath me, vibrating the floorboards and sending shivers to the very roof of the house. The sound of furious bats with razor-edged wings and steel claws tear around beneath my feet, as they pound their wings, looking for escape.

“Since when did this house have a basement?” I wonder aloud before the floor erupts, a geyser of the demonic bats filling the room. Screaming like a little boy with his dick caught in a vice, I drop the bottle of Jack and fling myself to the floor.

Shredding the air, the massive creatures stir up a riotous wind, ripping books from shelves and dashing a mirror across the floor. A piece of the glass soars through the air and impales itself in my eye. I can just barely hear myself scream over the shrieks of the bats, their voices alternately shrill and deeply demonic.

Howling and rolling on the floor with my hands slapped across my face, I cry out, “Fuck, shit, cat anus sniffer! My goddamn eye!!” Continue reading »

PSYGNOSIS: “HUMAN BE[ING]”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Apr 022014
 

(In this post DGR reviews the unusual new album by the French band Psygnosis.)

Sometimes, when seeking out new music a name just happens to grab you. Such was the case with French group Psygnosis. Whilst doing the usual random band/Facebook surfing I spotted the name and saw that there was a new release out — allowing us to have the combination (if the music was good) of being relevant as well as getting to yell at people to check out a new band. While, sadly, not the developer of the beloved Wipeout and Colony Wars games, Psygnosis are an experimental death metal band — a really young group (in terms of releases) with scant little to their name, and what they have released has been free.

The band have a heavy electronic element as part of their sound, but not in the sense of some random conflagration of rave synths finding their way into the midst of things like some shoehorned-in musical experiment turned Lovecraftian horror. Instead, the band are playing with the multi-headed hydra of the current death metal scenes, combining many genres into one — like much of what the Subliminal Groove record label’s slate of artists are beginning to do. They are also a four-piece, meaning that things are kept relatively sleek as well.

At the end of March Psygnosis released a new disc known as Human Be[ing]. It’s a fascinating album, with many different things happening at once and pulling in many different directions, utilizing the dead space between musical notes to the fullest while being stitched together by furious blast runs and various multimedia samples, like a futuristic and industrial-fueled Frankenstein’s monster. Continue reading »

VIRGIN SNATCH: “WE SERVE NO ONE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 312014
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by Poland’s Virgin Snatch.)

I wonder how many people who read this site even know who Virgin Snatch are. They’ve always been a band who’ve never gotten due recognition despite being one of the most killer and consistent death-thrash bands out there, especially considering their particular sound, which has always stuck out to me. I always felt like these dudes were the ultimate intersection between Carcass and Testament.

Sounds fucking silly, I realize, because to some people those two sounds would have absolutely no hope of blending in with each other. Virgin Snatch, though, have managed to do it, and as a result I don’t think there is another band who sound like them. We Serve No One is the bands fifth full length and it’s every bit as filthy and violent as any of their albums. Continue reading »

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