SPIRES: “SPIRAL OF ASCENSION”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jan 242012
 

(The UK’s Andy Synn reviews Spiral of Ascension by the UK’s Spires. Say that three times really fast.)

It is always a joy to encounter an album that is so much more than the mere sum of its parts, and Spiral Of Ascension is just one such encounter. Wearing its influences proudly on its sleeves, it showcases a band unafraid to play the ‘progressive’ card right from the off, not content to simply regurgitate  the sounds of their predecessors ad nauseum but instead choosing to walk the more difficult path, taking  the ancestral DNA of their progenitorss and re-moulding them, progressing them if you will, in order to construct an entirely new and distinctive form of musical expression which has evolved to possess a life of its own.

Strands of genetic information from Cynic, Death, and Opeth are perhaps the most obviously expressed in Spires’ genetic make-up, these 3 influences in particular serving to encapsulate the sphere in which they reside, without limiting their sound to one of mere worship and reverence. Although making such comparisons can often be seen as a crutch for reviewers, they also serve to characterise the ‘mode’ in which the album should be listened to. What is key , though, is that for Spiral Of Ascension these connections are rarely made during the listening experience, but more reflectively afterwards when attempting to describe such a pure and rewarding musical experience via the limitations of our inadequate linguistic terms. Continue reading »

EVER FORTHRIGHT

 Album Reviews  16 Responses »
Jan 232012
 

(TheMadIsraeli has been trying to sort out his feelings about the self-titled debut album from New York’s Ever Forthright, who we first wrote about back in June 2010 when they were a purely instrumental band. Finally, his feelings are all sorted.)

This fucking band.

This album has been like a torrid love affair with the hottest junkie street whore with a Ph.D. in philosophy.  I’ve been so back and forth on this fucking thing it’s why I never got around to reviewing it.  But after many listens and a shit-ton of soul searching, I’ve finally decided this thing’s a fucking winner, if nothing else for its ambition, scope, and commitment to craft alone.

Ever Forthright is probably going to launch themselves to the top of the tech-djent heap here within this next year by bringing forth EVERYTHING about this style that is great and makes it worthy of fascination, while being COMPLETELY devoid of any Meshuggah copping.  The fact that I went back and forth on my take on this album 20 times in seriously considering it tells you how much of a trip this was for me.

Ever Forthright’s debut is an ambitious one, clocking in at fucking 77 minutes in 12 songs and boasting a very diverse song catalogue. You have the low-end, punchy, open/closed note riffing, the technical widdly widdly’s and meedly meedly’s, and plenty of the Berklee jazz education breaking through to the surface, combined with Chris Baretto’s exceptional saxophone playing and a bit of deathcore brawn.

“All Eyes On The Earth” is a superb stage-setter for an opener, recalling the stylings of Periphery and Sikth, delivering superb melody-to-dissonance counterpoint and providing one of the most brutal breakdowns I’ve ever heard — a full minute and a half of being pummeled over the head with a goat’s jawbone until your skull splinters into your brain and you die from massive hemorrhaging.  The riffs are punctual yet all over the place, grooving yet aflutter; it’s absolutely fucking nuts.  The song is brimming with enough energy to power an entire nation and is a sufficient piece of ass-whoopage to get you attuned to the experience that is Ever Forthright. Continue reading »

BLOODSHOT DAWN

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jan 232012
 

We goat-throwers do like our guitar wizardry. We like other things, too, but bands who bring the shred generally light up our pasty white faces with a beaming glow. If you listen long enough and widely enough, of course, mere speed and dexterity no longer give you quite the same rush as they did in your listening infancy. You look for more — you look for creativity, a certain tone, a certain feel, some heart and soul, even . . . dare I say it . . . intelligence — along with the ability to trigger the headbang reflex, of course.

When a band is able to marry that kind of guitar talent with song-writing ability, performance skill at the other positions, and a knack for fusing diverse musical styles, you get something special. Revocation’s David Davidson and company pulled that off when they made their first serious splash in the scene during 2009 with the release of Existence Is Futile. I think we’re about to get wet from a similar splash on January 26, when Bloodshot Dawn releases their self-titled debut album.

This UK band features two lead guitarists — Josh McMorran (who is also the lead vocalist) and Benjamin Ellis (who also contributes backing vox). When you cut right down to the bone, the songs on the album really serve as platforms for them to strut their stuff. That’s not to say that the rest of each song is composed of filler — far from it. But what makes the album such a stand-out, and each song such a kick in the head to hear, is the space it gives these two to show what they’re made of. And what they’re made of is win. Continue reading »

AMORPHIS DEATHMATCH Round 4: “TUONELA”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

(Here’s Round Four of Trollfiend’s head-to-head, no-holes-barred cage fight with Amorphis. In this match, there are charges and counter-charges of Betrayal, and eventually a killing blow. To catch up on what’s going on here, read this post. Also, be sure to check out Trollfiend’s own blog, ALSO, WOLVES.)

The crowd is oddly silent as I step into the arena for this, my fourth battle against the music of Amorphis. I look up from the blood-soaked sand to see that the crowd is not merely silent; the arena is empty. Why was I summoned to do battle with no audience to witness?

Foreboding sets in…something is not right.

I sense….doom.

And then I see her, stepping from the shadows: the serpent assassin herself, Tuonela. So this is how it is to be. My victory has frightened Amorphis, and so they send their silent killers in the darkness.

I have fought the ancient and deadly Order of the Clean-Sung before. I know their dirty tricks. I know how they can fool the mind with raspy hooks and beguile the soul with the lament of sirens. I am prepared…but still this sense of doom pervades. My victory over Elegy still boils in my blood, but it was a victory hard-won, and I am not sure I have the stamina or the wits for this battle.

I have to remind myself why I am here. The Betrayal. Yes, in capitals, because it was an event so profound that it deserved a name. Amorphis won my confidence with their folk-tinged melodic death metal. I pledged my fealty to them, unto death. And they turned on me. Even then I could not believe they would consort with the Order…I was blinded by my pain and rage. But Tuonela stands now before me, as damning a piece of evidence as you could want. Continue reading »

ABORTED: “GLOBAL FLATLINE”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jan 202012
 

(This is the second of two reviews we’re publishing today of the new album by Aborted. Andy Synn is the author of this one. And if you haven’t yet listened to our premiere of the full album stream, make haste to this location.)

“What is today’s agenda? Ah yes, evisceration!”

Rejoice brethren, for the scions of sickness have returned. Sven De Caluwe and his band of morbid misfits, now featuring ex-Abigail Williams men Ken Bedene (drums) and Michael Wilson (guitar; also in System Divide) have produced a record that picks up where the stunning return to form of Coronary Reconstruction left off.

The new blood has definitely helped re-animate this fetid corpse, as the band bring a renewed bloodlust to the table, delivering  all the grinding intensity and raging death metal ferocity one might hope for, carrying over the undercurrent of malignant melody from Slaughter & Apparatus and Strychnine.213 whilst deftly sidestepping those records’ weaker elements.

Sven’s blast-furnance roars and morbid screams cut through the grime like a buzz-saw through rotting flesh, his always distinctive delivery showcasing the versatility of his vocals as an instrument, those vomitous Tardy-esque gutturals and rabid, Jeff Walker-style screeches accented by an Anselmo-level of belligerence, delivered in a gravelly mid-ranged bellow. Continue reading »

ABORTED: GLOBAL HARD-ON

 Album Reviews, Phro's Posts  15 Responses »
Jan 202012
 

(This is the first of two reviews we’re publishing today of the new album by Aborted. Phro, a displaced American forced to take refuge in Japan, is the author of this one. He also made suggestions to Aborted about how they might re-word the album and song titles. Shockingly, they didn’t change any of the titles. But they did let us premiere the full album stream of the new album, which you can find at this location.)

So when Islander sent me the album for review, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  I’ve experienced the hallucinogenic side effects of great death metal and grindcore albums before…but even so I was hardly prepared for this soul rampage.  It’s not because it’s the most br00t41 thing this side of cutting tin with a chain saw—no, there’s melody woven into this chainmail blanket of angry hatefuckery.

In fact, it is precisely this use of melody that makes the reptile beast, jerking off and eye-fucking saggy-titted old ladies on the train, need to kill.  The melody homes in like a laser sight on that dull lizard lolling about in your lower brain and then drops about fifty billion metric shit-tons of grrarrrfuckshitpissraaaaawrrdetroyyourfuckingfacerrrrr brutality right on that stupid tongue flicking motherfucker.  Pure, goddamn obliteration.  Total fucking wasteland.

Unfortunately, not all brain-lizards really care much for the brains within which they dwell.  Mine hates me more than those stupid fucking worthless pieces of shit the Westboro Baptist Nuttybars hate Bert and Ernie.  And, apparently, so does Aborted. Continue reading »

THE MADISRAELI’S TOP 15: XERATH – “II”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jan 182012
 

(Slowly but surely, TheMadIsraeli is reviewing or re-reviewing his picks for 2011’s best albums. Today, the pick is Xerath’s second full-length.)

Few bands have impacted me in the last year more than Xerath has.  Combining the regalness of Vader, the rhythmic mind-fuckery of Meshuggah, and the bone-grinding groove of Pantera, and smothering it in grand, romantic-era orchestral overlays, they’ve been at the forefront of what appears to be a rash of extreme orchestral metal.

Other bands such as Fleshgod Apocalypse, Septic Flesh, and Gromth are also proving that the classical music of old and the metal of now are really not all that incompatible by bringing forth a style in which the metal and the orchestral are joined as one, constantly weaving in and out of each other.  It could be argued that this is the synthesis of the two most legitimate styles of music ever created, the ultimate product.

Maybe I’m being overly grandiose or overstating the importance of what’s going on here, but Xerath and other bands who are fully incorporating orchestration are hitting me the right way, breathing new life into heavy music for me.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have a feeling this orchestral extreme metal thing is going to become extremely prominent in the future, and I think that’s for the betterment of metal as a whole. Continue reading »

KING GIANT: “DISMAL HOLLOW”

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Jan 182012
 

(In this post, BadWolf reviews the remarkable new album by Virginia’s King Giant.)

Human beings cannot make music in a vacuum. The land under our feet and histories written by our ancestors, even our neighbors’ ancestors, colors our lives in the present. That may seem elementary, but it’s essential to being a conscientious person … not to mention understanding King Giant’s 2012 album, Dismal Hollow. The Pimmit Hills, VA, quintet infuses their brand of stoner metal with the past, and the experience of being a small-town American in a part of the union that lost the American Civil War. In other worst, this is not merely heavy metal, it is haunted metal.

(more after the jump . . .)

Continue reading »

STRUCTURES: “DIVIDED BY”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 172012
 

(In this post, TheMadIsraeli provides a succinct review of the debut album on the Sumerian label from Toronto’s Structures.)

This won’t be a long review because it really doesn’t need to be.  I think this band’s music alone should be selling them.

Structures is the band that’s redeeming deathcore and, dare I say, potentially keeping it alive.  YES, there have been all too many discussions about the awful production on this album — the excessive clipping, the lack of dynamic range, the excessive fuzz when a heavy impact of bass comes in — and yet I FIND MYSELF DIGGING IT for how shitty it sounds.  It actually fits this band’s sound.

And what IS this band’s sound exactly?  I honestly don’t fucking know how to describe it, but of course I’ll try:  They employ every single element and aspect of the deathcore and djeathcore styles ever used, combined with plenty of old-school hardcore moments and a SHITTON of tempo and time signature changes.  Not only is the music technically and compositionally sound, but it’s massive as fuck.  This IS the most brutalizing deathcore I’ve ever heard in my life, and Structures delivers it without having to be over-the-top or relying on excessive posturing.  This shit rules.

Yeah.  That’s my review.  Enjoy the music after the jump.   Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DEFORMITY: “DEFOULMENT OF HUMAN PURITY”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 172012
 

(NCS contributor The Baby Killer returns to our site with a review of the 2010 Sevared Records release by Norway’s Hideous Deformity.)

When people think of metal from Norway, more often than not they automatically think of black metal. After all, corpse paint and arson do seem to be the country’s biggest exports. But as hard as it might be for some to wrap their heads around it, there is also at least one really talented tech death band from the frozen wastelands, and they go by the name of Hideous Deformity.

They may not have reinvented the wheel with their full-length Defoulment of Human Purity, but what they did do was find a good balance of technicality and accessibility. The riffs and songwriting in general are very fast-paced and spastic, but not to the point of self-indulgent wankery a la Brain Drill or early Origin. No sleight against them or bands like them, I love that shit as much as the next guy, but there is a point where it gets just plain exhausting. Instead, HD’s songs fall into that tech death grey area where they’re way too tech to be considered groovy, but are undeniably intriguing and catchy at the same time. Think Visceral Bleeding or Cabinet-era Spawn of Possession and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’re dealing with.

As you may have gathered by now, the musicianship is top-notch, easily on par with any other relevant tech death band, and with a session lineup including Darren Cesca (Arsis, Goratory, Vile, etc.) and Erlend Caspersen (Blood Red Throne, Spawn of Possession), how could it not? These two make their presence known right off the bat, too, since the first two tracks, “Awaiting Decomposition” and “Deviant Manifestation”, begin with a drum solo from Cesca and a bass solo from Caspersen respectively. Guitarist Robin Larsen and vocalist Jorgen Nilssen (quite possibly the single most Norwegian-sounding name I’ve ever heard) round out the lineup, and thus the riff machine that is Hideous Deformity is born. Continue reading »

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