BEST OF BRITISH 2019: ROOTS ENTWINED / SUBSERVIENCE / WATCHCRIES

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 062019
 

 

(In a new episode of this occasional series, Andy Synn again combines reviews of releases by bands from the UK, with three new offerings on tap today.)

So far this year I’ve barely touched upon the musical output of my homeland, barring a single edition of “The Best of British” back in February, but, wouldn’t you know it, I’ve now built up enough of a backlog that I have enough potential candidates to fill not only this column but another two additional ones as well.

At some point I’ll get them all written up and reviewed… at some point… but for now let’s begin with three shorter, but still rather spiffing, releases from Roots Entwined, Subservience, and Watchcries. Continue reading »

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE: “VELENO”

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May 062019
 

 

(This is DGR’s review of the new album by the Italian juggernauts Fleshgod Apocalypse, which will be released on May 24th via Nuclear Blast Records.)

At this point in their career every Fleshgod Apocalypse release has moved beyond mere album and into ‘spectacle’ territory, and their newest record, Veleno, proves no different. To repeat a point we’ve been guilty of raising a couple of times now, Fleshgod Apocalypse have made a career out of being the ‘most’. Oracles was their most straightforward brutal death disc — though it’s hard to deny the sheer power in the opening song “In Honour Of Reason” as it transitions from orchestral piece into death metal hurricane. Agony had the most bombast in terms of speed, Labyrinth tried to be the most ‘everything’ and wound up being the loudest amongst the bands discography, and — with Veleno included — King was probably the most orchestral the band have ever become to date.

But, if Veleno follows suit with its predecessors, where does that leave it within a collective that already defines nearly every element of the Fleshgod Apocalypse sound? Well, that’s the interesting part, because when you really nail it down, Veleno could be best described as Fleshgod Apocalypse‘s most carefully crafted spectacle to date. Continue reading »

KOLLAPS: “MECHANICAL CHRIST”

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May 062019
 

 

(This is Todd Manning‘s review of the new album by the Australian band Kollaps, which was released on May 3rd by Cold Spring Records.)

Kollaps are an Australian Post-Industrial trio deep-diving into the depths of sonic extremity on their second album Mechanical Christ, out now on Cold Spring Records. Not unlike their peers in this rather small niche in Extreme music, Kollaps take the listener on a harrowing journey through utter darkness and despondency, a place where guitar riffs are thrown out and replaced by sledgehammer percussion and waves of abrasive distortion.

The term Post-Industrial, used to describe Kollaps, is an interesting choice. Their sound in many ways is a return to the roots of Industrial Music. It is not hard to hear Throbbing Gristle, Test Dept., and Einstürzende Neubauten in the Sturm und Drang on Mechanical Christ, yet also present are more modern elements taken from Noise and Drone, and the effect is remarkably unsettling. Continue reading »

KAMPFAR: “OFIDIANS MANIFEST”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 302019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Norwegian black metal band Kampfar, which will be released on May 3rd by Indie Recordings.)

Metal is, perhaps more than any other genre I can think of, a style of music built around its own mythology.

The bands and artists whom we love (or loathe) become our heroes, and our villains, our gods, and our demons, often all at the same time, while certain places – the fetid swamps of Florida, the frozen mountains of Norway, the steel and smoke of Northern England – become invested with near-mythic significance of their own, giving birth to their own legends and lore and traditions.

Black Metal in particular is rich in its own particular brand of folklore and fairy tale – much of it drenched in the blood and sweat of its progenitors – to the point where it sometimes seems like the music plays second fiddle to the myths surrounding it.

But not with Kampfar. And not on Ofidians Manifest. Continue reading »

SORGELIG — “DEVOTED TO NOTHINGNESS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 292019
 

 

Last fall we had the opportunity to premiere a song from Devoted To Nothingness, the new EP by the Greek black metal band Sorgelig. The EP was eventually released in January, digitally and in a limited cassette tape edition. I had intended to write more about the EP following our premiere, and now (finally), I will. The delay is not all bad, because we’re now only days away from the release of a 12″ vinyl edition of Devoted To Nothingness by Iron Bonehead Productions (it’s due on May 3rd).

Sørgelig, who share three members with another band we’ve written about before (Isolert), released their first EP in 2017 (Forever Lost) and then an excellent debut album (Apostate) in the spring of last year. This new EP (which includes 8 tracks) represents a few changes. Continue reading »

VANUM / VARAHA / VIELIKAN / VIMUR

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Apr 292019
 

 

(This is a quartet of reviews written by Andy Synn, gathering together impressions and streams for four excellent new albums by bands who happen to share a first letter.)

Did you know they’re planning on doing a full-length movie version of Sesame Street?

I didn’t until recently, but I guess it just goes to show that anything which the studios believe can be turned into a movie will be turned into one eventually.

Still, as long as they avoid the temptation to make it a “dark and gritty reboot” I suppose it can’t be that bad, right?

Anyway, this has very little to do with the bands I’m writing about here today, other than to act as a cheeky little segue into me saying that today’s article is brought to you by the letter V and the number 4. Continue reading »

TURIN HORSE: “PROHODNA”

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Apr 292019
 

 

I learned of this just-released new album by the German band Turin Horse from Rennie (starkweather), who never steers me wrong. In genre terms, the music is a hybrid, and a rich mix of dark ingredients it is, pulling from sludge, doom, black metal, and post-metal, with vocals that are also varied.

A dark and desperate atmosphere shrouds the album, but within this harrowing cosmos of sound the band use a changing palette of bleak and fiery colors to maintain a tight grip on the listener’s attention. They anchor the songs with a titanically heavy low end (the bass is mountainous), capable of figuratively pounding your body into fragments when the band put their mind to it, and grinding the remnants into even smaller fragments. And as if the sheer physical brutishness of the music weren’t devastating enough, they create melodies of dismal and desolating power. Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2019: DAY 4

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 262019
 

 

(In what has become an annual tradition, our man from the UK, Andy Synn, attended Inferno Festival on April 18 – 21, 2019, in Oslo. We have been posting his reports on the event this week, day by day, accompanied by a few of his photos, and this is the final installment.)

 

The fourth and final day of Inferno Festival this year was a tale of woe and suffering… for me anyway… which began the previous evening.

By the time I got back to my hotel after Taake the night before I was already spiralling pretty hard. I had a raging fever, my legs were barely holding me up, and every single part of me felt simultaneously frozen and on fire and covered in sandpaper. For the next fourteen hours (trust me, I counted them) I was unable to sleep, unable to rest, and unable to do anything but sweat and shiver and curse my own existence.

Thankfully I eventually managed to drop off, as otherwise I think I might honestly have gone insane, although by this point it was early Sunday afternoon, which made it extremely unlikely I was going to see all the bands I wanted to. But I did manage to see some. Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2019: DAY 3

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 252019
 

 

(In what has become an annual tradition, our man from the UK, Andy Synn, attended Inferno Festival on April 18 – 21, 2019, in Oslo. We are posting his reports on the event this week, day by day, accompanied by a few of his photos.)

 

What can I say about the third day of this year’s Inferno Festival?

Quite a lot, as it turns out, although, for various reasons, still not as much as I’d hoped. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HEATHE — “ON THE TOMBSTONES, THE SYMBOLS ENGRAVED”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 252019
 

 

On May 30, 2019, Wolves and Vibrancy Records will release the debut album of Heathe, a project born in Aalborg, Denmark, with a core of a single individual and an ever-changing line-up. The album, entitled On the Tombstones, The Symbols Engraved, is colossally heavy and about as physically compelling in its massive rhythms as anything you could find. It’s also intensely disturbing and disorienting, capable of making mincemeat of your brain and clawing at your emotional well-being at the same time as it metaphorically pounds the hell out of your body.

The album is a single 38-minute track composed of different repeating sequences which flow into each other. You can pick out elements of doom, black metal, and noisy hypno-rock in this evolving hybrid of corporal punishment, emotional abrasion, and mental hallucination, but everything is united in a way that makes the music seem to have been borne this way in an instant, rather than cobbled together from disparate pieces. To be carried away by it, without losing interest, is a natural reaction despite how harrowing the music becomes, even though it takes a while to recover from the whole trip. Continue reading »

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