Album Reviews Archives - Page 98 of 545

THE ZENITH PASSAGE: “DATALYSIUM”

Aug 012023

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new second album by L.A.-based The Zenith Passage, recently released by Metal Blade Records.)

A few specters are hovering around tech-death group The Zenith Passage and their newest release Datalysium. One of them is the surprising amount of time that it took for The Zenith Passage to reach their sophomore full-length release. In what seems to be a recurring theme with 2023, a large block of time has passed between releases here; the group’s prior album Solipsist arrived in 2016 and it is only now at a little over seven years later that the band are on their second album.

The second specter is something that everyone is going to bring up at one point or another when discussing them. Given the group’s pedigree, it is hard not to imagine this playing out as one of the background narratives surrounding the record: When three of the four musicians involved in a new release were at one point or another involved in the revolving door of The Faceless over the years, it’s difficult to avoid drawing comparisons. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: WAYFARER, ASHTAR, HOUSE OF FLOWERS

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Jul 292023

Dear friends and complete strangers, greetings to you on another diēs Sāturnī. I must be brief today because of an Event I must attend, which begins soon and will extend until the stars come out, when the congregants will have to see each other by firelight.

That Event continues tomorrow, beginning early on dies Solis and again proceeding past nightfall, and so don’t be surprised if my next usual round-up of new music, the blacker one, is also brief or goes missing altogether, even if I don’t fall into the fire.

WAYFARER (U.S.)

Denver-based Wayfarer‘s next album, American Gothic, is said to serve as “a funeral for the American dream”. “Caked in dust, and buried deep in blood and gunpowder, it paints a brutal and beautiful portrait” — so says Profound Lore, which will release the album on October 27th. “What we have now is a world full of oil drillers, and railroad barons. Cattle thieves and company men. This is the new American Gothic”. So says the band.

Along with these announcements came a video for a new album track named “False Constellation“. Continue reading »

DEADSPACE: “WITHIN HAUNTED CHAMBERS”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Jul 282023

Those of you who have been routinely stopping by our site over the last few weeks know that we’ve been enthusiastically welcoming the return of the Australian black metal band Deadspace, not only trying to help spread the word about their forthcoming seventh album Unveiling the Palest Truth on the Immortal Frost label, but also announcing and premiering a song from their new EP Within Haunted Chambers — and today that EP has been released.

As we’ve previously reported, the EP functions as something of a harrowing glide path to the takeoff of the new album. It includes three tracks from two Deadspace albums, The Promise of Oblivion (independently released in 2015) and Dirge (released through Talheim Records in 2019), but Deadspace have re-recorded the songs to showcase their evolution over the years in the live and studio arenas and to bring them more in line with what we’ll hear on the new full-length. As they explained to us:

This is part of us re-establishing ourselves and a much harsher and heavier entity, leaving behind the DSBM moniker. These tracks are how these songs are played live now in 2023 and are designed to sit well amongst our newer material that will be out in September.

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PANZERCHRIST — “LAST OF A KIND”

Album Reviews, Premieres 1 Response »

Jul 272023

Some of you reading this already know the 30-year history of the Danish band Panzerchrist without being told, because you lived through it. Others may have heard the name but were still children when the band released their last album, 7th Offensive, a decade ago — and yes, a decade of silence has passed since their last release.

The full history is an extensive one, not merely because the band’s origins go back to 1993 and included seven albums before the silence fell, but also because the band’s members have changed significantly over that 30-year life, and the full list of participants is both very long and also star-studded.

It’s tempting to delve deeper into that history to set the stage for the evidence of the band’s resurrection — a new album named Last Of A Kind that will be released tomorrow by Emanzipation Productions — but despite the ground-breaking nature of the band’s earliest albums, most hardcore metalheads know that an enthusiastic reception for a new record must be earned, even by bands who have already made their place in the history books.

So, in the case of Last Of A Kind, have Panzerchrist earned it? Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ATONEMENT — “SADISTIC INVADERS”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Jul 262023

If we were health-and-safety regulators we’d require people to don flame-retardant suits and headgear fed by big oxygen tanks before listening to the album we’re about to premiere in full (it would also be a good idea to dig up whatever spells you can come by that are designed to ward off demons). But we’re not regulators of any kind, so just forget about self-protection and get ready to be torched by one of the most explosive and exhilarating albums you’re likely to hear all year.

The band is a Swedish trio from Stockholm named Atonement, and the album Sadistic Invaders is their full-length debut, which will be released in just a couple of days by Dying Victims Productions. When you hear it you wouldn’t guess that these three barbarians aren’t yet in their 20s, age-wise, and thus it’s even more mind-boggling to consider what they might do next to follow up a truly mind-boggling debut album.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s focus instead on what we have in front of us right now. The PR materials portray the band as “dead-ringers for juiced-up and jackhammering deathrash of a most mid-‘80s vintage,” which is true, but we’d venture to sum it up in a different way — as maniacal demon-thrash that blows open the gates of Hell. Continue reading »

GODTHRYMM : “DISTORTIONS”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Jul 262023

(We present Wil Cifer‘s review of Godthrymm‘s new album, which is set for release on August 18th by Profound Lore Records.)

Doom does not feel like summer music to me. The heat normally makes me want to listen to death metal. I am on the other side of the bridge from Tampa, the birthplace of classic death metal, so it’s not until the storms roll in over the bay that I am in the mood for the kind of doom this gloomy British band churns out.

Despite having ex-members of My Dying Bride and Anathema in the band they are not weighed down by trying to capture the Peaceville sound. They further separate themselves from a great deal of modern doom by chugging forward with melodic purpose rather than getting lost in the meandering around a droning sprawl of sound.

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TELOCH VOVIN AND VISERION — “THE IRON AGE OF KALI YUGA”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Jul 252023

On Friday of this week, the 28th of July, two New York based black metal bands whose music we’ve covered here before — Teloch Vovin and Viserion — will release a new split entitled The Iron Age of Kali Yuga, available on CD and digital formats from both bands and featuring artwork by Elena Vasilaki. On Friday night they’ll also participate in a listening party for the songs at Duff’s Brooklyn.

A pair of songs from the split, one from each band, have already surfaced, but what we bring you today is a full stream of the entire split — essentially one new EP from each group. They will serve as a fine introduction to these bands for people who haven’t encountered their music before, and for existing fans it provides a portrait of where their music has arrived in the current day (though it will undoubtedly continue to evolve).

As usual, we’ll share our own thoughts about the split as a preview of the listening experience, along with some insights from the bands themselves, and we’ll take them in alphabetical order. Continue reading »

THE GORGE – MECHANICAL FICTION

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Jul 252023

(Andy Synn wants you to think a little differently about the new album from The Gorge)

As I’ve stated a few times now, 2023 has been a surprisingly Prog-friendly year so far – for me, at least.

But it’s worth noting that words like “Prog” or “Progressive” mean different things when applied to different styles and sub-genres of music.

After all, what’s considered “progressive” in one genre might be par for the course in another, and vice versa.

Case in point, the sinuous songwriting and impressive instrumental abilities underpinning Mechanical Fiction certainly suggest that The Gorge are a “Prog” band.

But what sort?

MENTAL CRUELTY: “ZWEILICHT”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Jul 242023

(In the following review DGR takes a very deep dive into the new album by the German band Mental Cruelty, which was released near the end of June by Century Media Records.)

The deathcore genre is one that has absorbed so much over the years in the nuclear arms race for ‘heavy’ that we’ve gone beyond being able to track down any particular list of influences or context being provided. We’re layers upon layers deep at this point, and much as it was opined in our writeup for Worm Shepherd‘s latest, it seems like the genre has folded in on itself enough times that at this point it’s just short of a few tempering baths and a sharpening stone that it could be morphed into a sharp blade.

Lately, groups have made use of these insanely multi-talented vocalists, adding their own multitude of vocals on top of it, so that the attack comes from multiple directions, embraced backing symphonics, and cranked the tempo up to near-lightspeed at all times. It has become a genre of ‘a lot’, and a lot is thrown at you any time you’re listening to such a group. Many, it seems, have warmed to the idea of getting by on sheer bombast alone. However, some impressive groups within that sphere have managed to make use of the ever-increasing multitude of weapons offered to them, and Germany’s Mental Cruelty are one such group.

Germany is already pretty skilled at making brutal death and slam music, so it wasn’t too shocking that Mental Cruelty‘s earlier works were born out of and were fully within that vein, but the group made a massive leap in that symphonics-backed brutal-death direction on their 2021 album A Hill To Die Upon. Of course, not long after the group would lose a vocalist as sexual assault allegations came to light post-signing to Century Media, because that seemingly inevitable sword that hovers above all -core group’s heads came collecting. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: NIDARE, COLLIER D’OMBRE, GRIFT, ATGEIR, VOIDMÏLKER

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Jul 232023

Nidare

Why would any sane person wake up at 4:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, which is what I did today? Was it too hot to sleep in our un-air-conditioned bedroom? Not at all — it was a delicious 55°F (12.7°C) outside (eat your hearts out all you hell-dwellers in the rest of the sun-broiled world). It may have been that I limited my Saturday-night intoxicants to one ice-cold martini. Possibly I was subconsciously anxious because I had made no start on the writing of this column yesterday.

I don’t recommend this kind of behavior. I see no evidence that the early bird gets the worm. Instead, it turns the brain wormy… or at least very foggy. I went in search of music to function as a pesticide (the more forever chemicals, the better) and a bitter wind to blow away the fog. Here’s what I found:

NIDARE (Germany)

Late last year we premiered a song from Von Wegen, the then-forthcoming debut album by this German post-black metal band, and it pulled me headlong all the way into that album. It’s a very good thing, then, that we haven’t had to wait long for a follow-up, which hit the streets on July 12th in the form of a stunning EP named Naehe und Flackern (via Through Love Records). Continue reading »

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