IN VAIN: “CURRENTS”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  6 Responses »
Jan 262018
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Norway’s In Vain, which is being released today by Indie Recordings.)

If you’ve been paying attention to the Metal blogosphere over the last few months, chances are that you’ll have stumbled across either (or both) of the new singles from Norwegian Prog-Metallers In Vain, released in advance of their new album Currents (out today on Indie Recordings).

What might surprise you, however, is the revelation that these two tracks are. arguably, the worst on the album. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): HUMAN SERPENT, KAVYK, THE KRYPTIK, LIVING ALTAR, NIPHREDIL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Jan 252018
 

 

Yesterday I posted the first Part of this three-part collection of new or recently discovered black metal. If the rest of my life will cooperate, I should be able to post Part Three tomorrow. As previously explained, I arranged all the music in alphabetical order by band name and then divided the list into thirds. And so tomorrow’s music comes from bands whose names follow the letter N — unless I find something else I want to tack on, or forget how to alphabet.

HUMAN SERPENT

My comrade DGR pointed me to For I, the Misanthropist, the third album by the Greek band Human Serpent. I don’t think we’ve written about Human Serpent before, although in preparing to write this post I saw that the band’s last release (just a few months ago) was a 20-minute collaboration with Isolert, who I have tried to expose to our readers on a couple of previous occasions. That’s a release I need to listen to (and you can listen to it here as well). Continue reading »

REPLICANT — “NEGATIVE LIFE”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 252018
 

 

(We present a guest review of the new album by New Jersey’s Replicant, written by Stephen Matthew Schwegler, a member of Pyrrhon, Seputus, and Weeping Sores.)

Being a songwriter in a vastly under-appreciated but densely populated genre, the importance of a strong identity seems, to me, paramount. To be fair, I am biased in the case of the band Replicant. I love single-word band monikers. I love brutal and atonal slamming death metal. I love Pete/Mike/Matty as individuals, and my band has played shows with them numerous times now.

That being said, the creature that is Replicant inhabits a long-missed niche in death metal for me. Concise and elegant, their simplistic namesake tells you everything you need to know about the band before ever hearing the music. Continue reading »

CROW BLACK SKY: “SIDEREAL LIGHT: VOLUME ONE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 232018
 

 

(Andy Synn wrote this review of the new album by Crow Black Sky from Cape Town, South Africa.)

 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of writing about music (and that’s a big “if”), it’s that you should never completely write a band off, as they can always surprise you.

Such is the case with South African quartet Crow Black Sky, whose debut record, 2010’s Partheion, proved to be a not-unenjoyable slab of highly melodic, keyboard-inflected Black Metal in the vein of Kolossus-era Keep of Kalessin and early Dimmu Borgir which, despite its obvious merits, largely failed to set the music world on fire, and was soon lost in the shuffle.

Eight(!) years later, however, the band have returned with a new sound, a new outlook, and a brand new album which completely blows its predecessor out of the water. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: UNTERVOID — “UNTERVOID”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 222018
 

 

Those of you who are familiar with our frequent premieres know that we always accompany the music with our own thoughts about what you will hear. There are times (though not often) when I think it might be a mistake to include a review, both because I fear my words will be pathetically inadequate and because even an adequate description might threaten to spoil a jaw-dropping surprise. This is one of those times.

The self-titled debut EP of Untervoid is in fact a cavalcade of surprises, an almost chaotic but ingenious conglomeration of stylistic ingredients that may in fact defy at least my own meager descriptive powers. And even in making the attempt to convey the sensations of sound and emotion, I might be reducing the impact of what you would experience by simply launching the player without further ado. But, for better, or more likely for worse, I’m forging on anyway. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABYSSAL VACUUM — “MMXVII”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 222018
 

 

Abyssal Vacuum’s new EP reveals a distinctive musical vision and “voice”, the three songs offering a conception of atmospheric black metal that manages to be both mesmerizing and strikingly intense. It’s described by the label that’s releasing it as emanations from a deep and cavernous abyss, “like exploring the darkest caves of Earth”, but the experience it creates might also bring to mind the mysteries of the cosmos lurking in a hostile off-world void.

Abyssal Vacuum is the solo project of French creator Sebastien B. (of Dyslumn and Ominous Shrine), and the project’s first release, which was recorded around the end of 2017, is being made available this week, both digitally and on cassette tape, by the French label Solar Asceticists Productions. What we have for you today is the premiere stream of all three tracks that appear on the EP. Continue reading »

TRIBULATION: “DOWN BELOW”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jan 222018
 

 

(Wil Cifer turns in this review of the new album by Tribulation, which will be released by Century Media on January 26th.)

 

The new album from this Swedish band is labelled by my iTunes as “gothic metal”. This is a bit of a misnomer as it sounds nothing like Type O Negative or My Dying Bride. They have been wearing a bit of make-up for some time now, but that affects their complexion more than their sound. The bells and whistles giving them a layer of atmosphere have multiplied. There are more synths on this album, but it makes it more melodic not darker.  But I have a high bar for what I call “goth”. If there are not less than six degrees of separation between a band and The Cure’s Pornography album it’s not “goth”.

What seems to have occurred in the time that has passed since they released The Children of the Night is this band has listened to a ton of classic metal from the ‘70s and ‘80s. While a logical progression for their sound, this makes for a much more streamlined version of their already melodic take on death metal. Continue reading »

HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY: “ARSON”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jan 192018
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the Austrian band Harakiri For the Sky, which will be released by AOP Records on February 16th.)

If you’re a long-time follower of the site you may have picked up on an ongoing war of words between some of our writers about how to properly categorise the music of the Austrian duo Harakiri for the Sky.

And while I agree that how you choose to describe their sound doesn’t directly affect the quality of their material one iota, I still think it’s important that we use the right terms and the right language when writing about the band (or any band), as it can definitely have an effect on how people judge and perceive them.

All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that Arson is one damn fine slab of punchy, pulse-quickening Melodeath… and I won’t hear a single word to the contrary! Continue reading »

NETER: “INFERUS”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Jan 172018
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn’s review of the new album by the Spanish metal band Neter.)

 

Legacy… that’s a word which I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. The legacy that some bands leave, and the legacy to which all bands belong.

And it does seem, from my admittedly limited perspective, that the idea of legacy is considered to be more important in the Metal scene than most, what with our differentiation and delineation of “Old School vs New”, and our preoccupation with categorising various genres (and sub-genres) into historical “waves”.

Not that any of this is a bad thing, by the way. If anything it always helps to know where you come from, in whose footsteps you might be following, and on whose shoulders you currently stand.

It’s why pretty much every Metal band, no matter how “extreme” they might be, owes a significant debt to Slayer or Metallica, and are part of a legacy tracing its origins not just from Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, but also from Blues and Rock and Roll and from a host of other acts and artists and musical styles down through the ages. Continue reading »

HORIZON ABLAZE: “THE WEIGHT OF A THOUSAND SUNS”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Jan 152018
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Norway’s Horizon Ablaze, which will be released on February 17th by Leviatan/Diger.)

Ever since Emperor first semi-reformed for their ongoing series of reunion shows people have been asking them about the possibility of a new album. And while this, in itself, isn’t all that surprising, the band’s forthright comments about how that’s never going to happen have been rather refreshing.

As Ihsahn himself has said multiple times, any new album would have to be a product of both his and Samoth’s different writing styles, and the two of them have since diverged so much – one leaning more and more towards pure Prog, the other delving ever deeper into more deathly waters – that finding some sort of consensus or common ground that still actually represented the Emperor sound, would be almost impossible.

But… if they ever did produce a sequel to Prometheus I would imagine it wouldn’t sound a million miles away from the extravagant, expressive extremity of The Weight of a Thousand Suns. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries