GOROD: “A PERFECT ABSOLUTION”

 Album Reviews  22 Responses »
Mar 162012
 

(groverXIII reviews the new album by Gorod, which will be released by Listenable Records on March 23 in Europe and by Unique Leader on May 8 in North America.)

Holy fuck, I love Gorod.

This is not a new development, of course. I first became a fan back when Process Of A New Decline was released, which just happened to be around the time that I really started getting into technical death metal. I started with Necrophagist and Obscura’s Cosmogenesis, along with Cynic’s Traced In Air, but Process was the first time that tech-death really, truly clicked for me. It wasn’t an immediate thing, of course… it took several listens before the seemingly incomprehensible mass of sweeping and tapping began to make sense, and several more listens before I really started to understand the ridiculously complex song structures, but by then, I was well and truly hooked. Gorod did what I had previously thought impossible by making tech-death catchy.

Since then, I’ve searched for another tech-death band with that same knack for writing those complex, yet unbelievably catchy tunes, and while I have discovered a lot of great bands, none have managed to truly top Process. I imagine that this is somewhat akin to what junkies and serial killers go through, constantly and futilely chasing that initial high. Still, I have one advantage that they don’t have… Gorod could always release an album that manages to outdo themselves, even in my mind.

Is A Perfect Absolution that album? At this point, I’d have to say no. But that’s not to say that this is a bad album; far from it, in fact. A Perfect Absolution is, in my humble opinion, the best tech-death album of a year that’s been very, very good for tech-death. When you consider the fantastic new albums from bands like Spawn Of Possession, Psycroptic, Xenocide, Bloodshot Dawn, Gory Blister, and Innerty, as well as decent releases from the likes of Veil Of Maya, Beneath The Massacre,  Ketha, Deformitas Pictura, and Slice The Cake, this is saying quite a bit. It’s not so much a negative statement regarding any of those releases, so much as it is a statement of just how fucking good A Perfect Absolution is. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: OVID’S WITHERING – “THE CLOUD GATHERER”

 Album Reviews  28 Responses »
Mar 152012
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut EP by Ovid’s Withering.)

Well Trollfiend, you got what you wanted.

Trollfiend asked me after a post of mine a long time ago (I don’t remember which one) if I ever thought Blackened-djent was possible or if I knew any existed.  At the time, at least to my knowledge, none existed.  That is until now.

Ovid’s Withering are exactly that:  Black metal and djent combined to create one of the most epic aural experiences I’ve gone through.  I honestly didn’t think it was fucking possible, people, and while this isn’t an entirely pure blackened djent experience (lots of tech death is present as well), a boundary I didn’t think breakable has officially been broken.  This band is also quite relevant to my interests, and I assume all of us here at NCS as well — this band has 7 Horns 7 Eyes vocalist JJ “Shiv” Polachek doing his beastly savagery on the mic.

This is Ovid’s Withering’s debut EP, The Cloud Gatherer. Continue reading »

BLUE HERPS: “NODUL”

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Mar 142012
 

I get gratification from this post in so many ways. First, the band is called Blue Herps. If you don’t dig that name, then your sphincter may be too tight. I don’t know for sure what it means, but it sounds like a new strain of STD that causes the bits that do all the thinking to turn blue, before they then turn black and fall off like chunks of rotten meat.

Second, the band is obscure by most standards, and one of our long-standing missions at this site is to shine some light on bands who aren’t very well known. Blue Herps, for example, has a grand total of 17 Facebook likes, and I was No. 17. Granted, it looks like they only created a FB page in February, but still.

Third, the cover of their new album, Nodul, is sick. It uses pretty colors and a nice close-up of some teeth badly in need of dental work that by sheer coincidence happen to spell the album’s title. Man, I wonder how long it took Blue Herps to find someone whose bad teeth spelled the name of their album? This band is either really persistent in looking in people’s mouths or they’re very lucky. Also, I find their unreadable band logo strangely appealing. It’s spiky but kind of graceful.

Fourth, they have song names like “Leucoplasie”, “Flow Beat”, “Tumor”, “Hyperdontie”, and “Blurps”. Some of the song titles seem to be the French or German words for disgusting diseases of the mouth and gums.  Nodul actually has 20 song names, because that’s how many songs are on the album. But most of the songs are only about a minute long or less.

So, let’s see . . . I know there’s something else about this post that’s gratifying. It will come to me . . . Oh fuck yeah, the music! Continue reading »

ENTHRONED: “OBSIDIUM”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 132012
 

(In this post, NCS writer Andy Synn reviews the superb new album by Belgium’s Enthroned.)

I can’t quite tell you exactly why, with the advent of Obisdium, Enthroned have produced their magnum opus, a defining statement of their sound and purpose. It’s a combination of lots of little things, and a culmination of years of work and progression from a band who have always teetered on the edge of producing something great. The songs stand proudly alone, yet united as a furious horde of channelled barbarism, every instrument given prominence and power in a combination both compelling and devastating.

The lethal focus and razor-sharp intent of each and every track is like a scalpel cutting into fragile flesh, clean, quick and precise. Yet this impressive concision and precision does not preclude variety. For all its panzerfaust blasting assault on the senses, the album manages to intelligently vary its pacing and style, from a blizzard of icy tremolo picking to a more death metal stomp and grind, through to rusted, doomy funeral marches of ghastly, shrouded chords. At its fastest, the album absolutely scorches, leaving behind only blackened and gnarled bones, licked by ebon flames. At its slowest, it churns a hideous maelstrom of dragging rip-tides and claustrophobic, choking undercurrents.

For all that Obisidum represents as another salvo in the Satanic war of dominion, it does so with disarming cleverness and subtlety, easing its way under the listeners’ skins to possess them wholly and entirely. Though it never sacrifices sheer, obliterating power, it is the hidden complexities and predatory intelligence of the material’s construction that makes it the most devastating weapon of damnation in Enthroned’s 9-album strong arsenal.

The devil truly is in the details. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: OBLIVIONIZED – “NULLIFY THE CYCLE”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Mar 102012
 

Last August, I went nuts over Abhorrent Evolution, the debut EP by a London-based collective with the apt name of Oblivionized. I compared the listening experience to “being backed against a wall with a firehose spewing sulphuric acid at full force, straight at your unprotected self” and called the music “super-charged metal at a hyperdrive pace, a tech-grind portrait of the 7th Circle of Hell, music with the sensibilities of a ravenous demon horde set loose after a milennial imprisonment.” And there were more metaphors.

Now there are more songs. Oblivionized has just released a new three-song EP called Nullify the Cycle through Grindcore Karaoke, which has made the music available for free download on Bandcamp (in exchange for your e-mail address).

Oblivionized prove again that they are a band to watch very closely. Listening to “The Nullification of Philanthropy” and “Cycle of Deprivation” is like being dropped without warning into a war zone. Combining an array of corroded, swirling guitar leads and vicious chugs, the band vent their fury with megawatt power. But the music isn’t an explosion of chaos. It’s technically demanding and filled with sharp changes in rhythm; this mechanized assault is well-coordinated and impressively executed. Continue reading »

BLACK BREATH: “SENTENCED TO LIFE”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Mar 062012
 

(BadWolf reviews the new album on the Southern Lord label by Seattle’s own Black Breath.)

One look at that album cover should let you know that this music is going to kick your ass—it functions as a statement of purpose. It’s striking, minimal, and to the point—unlike the muddled cult paraphernalia on the cover of 2010’s Heavy Breathing. It evokes metal classics like Judas Priests’ British Steel, Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All, and The Scorpions’ Virgin Killer; even though Black Breath sounds nothing like those bands, they still bring adolescent fury in a way that feels fun, like those bands, while still sounding modern.

Why am I talking about the art? Everyone knows you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Because you used to be able to buy an album based on its art and know you were in for your money’s worth of audio pummeling—that’s true here.  Black Breath evaded the sophomore slump and delivered one burst of white-hot intensity with Sentenced to Life.

Its predecessor, Heavy Breathing, would have been near the top of my favorite albums of 2010 list had I heard it before January 2011. I would rank it alongside Trap Them’s Darker Handcraft and Masakari’s The Prophet Feeds as the finest examples of my favorite current trend, the Crust-Punk-Meets-Old-School-Death music that has come to define post-2010 Southern Lord records (see also: Heartless, All Pigs Must Die, each fucking great). While I give Darker Handcraft a slight edge, Heavy Breathing has an ace up its sleeve: the song “I Am Beyond,” possibly the best mosh riff I have ever heard. Continue reading »

HAIL SPIRIT NOIR: “PNEUMA”

 Album Reviews  14 Responses »
Mar 052012
 

I tend to act on impulse most of the time, but all restraint completely goes up in smoke when I hear music that’s as unusual and original as the debut album by Hail Spirit Noir from Greece. And so it was that after initially intending only to test the waters on Pneuma, I became thoroughly immersed and completely captivated by its idiosyncrasies; all best-laid plans for other NCS projects were shoved aside in favor of this review.

What makes Pneuma so arresting is the brashness with which it combines dramatically disparate styles of music (and instrumental sounds) without completely losing the thread of cohesion. Cohabiting, more or less cooperatively, under a loose framework of black metal aesthetics are everything from 60’s flower-power pop psychedelics to 70’s prog rock to 80’s New Wave dance beats to melodic doom and cool jazz — and let’s not forget about the strings, the mellotron, and the occasional punk chord progressions.

Hail Spirit Noir are not the first band who have combined and juxtaposed elements of black metal with more popular musical styles far outside the genre. I don’t pretend to have made a serious study of the subject, but the first time I can recall hearing anything like this was on Enslaved’s 2008 album, Vertebrae. Perhaps most vividly captured by the opening track “Clouds”, it snapped black metal apart and creatively spliced in elements of psychedelia, prog, and alt-rock, while combining Grutle Kjellson’s harsh rasps and Herbrand Larsen’s clean, clear vocals to good effect.

More recently, Sweden’s Ghost have hit lots of radar screens with a different kind of juxtaposition, combining hook-filled pop-rock melodies and almost exclusively clean tenor vocals with satanic lyricism and just enough fuzzed-out riffage to make you realize (agreeably) that the music really isn’t all that wholesome after all. Continue reading »

SUTEKH HEXEN: “LARVAE”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Mar 042012
 

How far can you go in the creation of harsh, ritualistic noise and still term the results “music”? Sutekh Hexen test those limits with their new album Larvae — the first of their creations I’ve heard. They come pretty close to the bleeding edge — and I say that as someone whose musical diet is confined largely to the kind of extreme metal that 99% of the world’s population would scorn as “not music”.

I found a quote from a musicologist named Jean-Jacques Nattiez that seemed relevant: “My own position can be summarized in the following terms: just as music is whatever people choose to recognize as such, noise is whatever is recognized as disturbing, unpleasant, or both.”

Of course, I would disagree with that conceptual dividing line (and I suspect Sutekh Hexen would, too). Some of the most powerful metal is both disturbing and unpleasant, just as life can be, and I would still call it music — because listening to it is a human-generated experience that engages the mind and moves the emotions. Larvae certainly does that, and isn’t that what music does?

The album is a paradox: Though it’s often massively distorted, atonal, and violent, it’s also hypnotic. It’s often utterly unnerving, and yet it matches the explosiveness of rage with moments of hollow resignation and sensations of grief-ridden acceptance. Much of the music sounds like a massive turbine generator on the verge of going supernova, and yet it includes extended passages of subdued acoustic guitar melody that somehow don’t seem out of place amidst all the background static.

And as unsettling as the Larvae listening experience is, it’s one that’s likely to stay with you; it has certainly stayed with me. Continue reading »

NAPALM DEATH: “UTILITARIAN”

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Mar 012012
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album from Napalm Death.)

“We Simply Will Not Acknowledge What We Choose Willingly To Ignore”

These potent words are the first spoken on Napalm Death’s new opus Utilitarian.  They’re a fitting intro to another sonic napalm run brought to you with only the most intense of politically charged vitriol.

Napalm Death are my favorite extreme band of any sort who have a heavy focus on politics besides Dying Fetus.  To say that I’ve been anticipating this album is an understatement.  To say I was prepared for what awaited me, as I thought I was, would be wrong — a delusional and oft-repeated stupid fucking mistake that resulted in having my jugular ripped out (a common mistake when it comes to these guys).

You may know I usually review grindcore albums in brief “x-treme” style, and I usually do so because it fits the music.  However, to treat a Napalm Death album this way would be missing the point entirely, and would under-value the music itself — a sound that has become much more than their grindcore origins.

The sentence quoted above comes from the album’s opening track, a largely instrumental song entitled “Circumspect” that evokes a feeling of lumbering doom.  Such an intro does not adequately prepare the listener for the rest of the album by any means: “Errors in the Signals” immediately lashes out like a pack of hyenas with late-stage rabies, fitted with dogs-of-war collars.  Continue reading »

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