HAVOK: “CONFORMICIDE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 172017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new fourth album by Colorado’s Havok, which was released by Century Media earlier this month.)

I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE Havok. These guys are the quintessential example of what an excellent re-thrash band sounds like. Old school energy and attitude, but new school song-writing, technicality, and slight tinges of hybridization with other borrowed styles.

Thus far, Havok’s got what I call a pretty flawless discography. The EPs, while underdeveloped, were great; Time Is Up was the best thrash album of its year; and the band’s last release Unnatural Selection was definitely up there in its year, too.

It’s been four years since Havok released anything, marking the first time the band have gone more than two years between major releases since their inception. While they’ve certainly been gaining recognition (rightfully so) and touring like fucking madmen, the band have clearly been working on their sound, and where to go from here. Continue reading »

WARBRINGER: “WOE TO THE VANQUISHED”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 162017
 

 

(The MadIsraeli reviews the new album by Warbringer, which will be released on March 31 by Napalm Records.)

Warbringer are a band who up to now never quite hooked me. They’re no doubt talented, and they are definitely in the upper echelon of the old school thrash revival. I should’ve liked these guys more. They were essentially more aggressive Twisted Into Form Forbidden, but I always felt they played it too safe, enough so that it kept me from being enthralled by their music. Having said that, I’ve always been willing to give the newest Warbringer album a listen when one comes out, because I WANT to like these guys more than I have.

The main thing that really makes these re-thrash bands any good is when they know how to blend the old school with modernity, and in the past Warbringer were too busy living in the past and imitating it rather than emboldening it with a new-school spirit. That is, until Woe To The Vanquished. Continue reading »

LOCK UP: “DEMONIZATION”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Mar 152017
 

 

(We present DGR’s review of the new album by the death-grind super-group Lock Up, which was released on March 10th by Listenable Records.)

It is rare that I find myself admiring a musician for the amount of fun he seems to be having on a disc; but I sincerely hope that one day I have half as much fun as Nick Barker seems to be having with the toms on his kit on Lock Up’s new disc Demonization.

We open with musing on that fact because if there is one dominant thing you won’t help but notice over and over during the vicious barrage of auditory violence that Lock Up wield against their listeners during Demonization, it is the constant drum fills that feature the upper part of the man’s drum kit as he just flies through the whole thing. Someone pulled him aside and told him ‘go fast’, and that is what he did for most of the album, save for three songs where the group actually slow down slightly, and he unleashes some ultra-tight blasts and rolls constantly, making sure every drum and cymbal available to him gets the everliving shit beat out of it.

But of course, that’s much like the entire listening experience; it is why we come to grind-stalwarts Lock Up in the first place, right? Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: SCÁTH NA DÉITH, MUKA, AUTHOR & PUNISHER, ISOLERT

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Mar 152017
 

 

I have some friends on this site (and I’m thinking mainly of Andy, Austin, and Gorger) who have a talent for compiling collections of brief reviews that get their points across concisely and then let the music carry the baton across the finish line. I’m going to try that here myself, because I’ve sadly admitted to myself that I’ll never get around to writing proper reviews of these releases. These aren’t even improper reviews, just impressionistic streams of consciousness.

Three of the following releases are albums I hinted on Sunday would be covered in an extension of my SHADES OF BLACK series. The fourth one is an EP that popped up unexpectedly. I’m hoping to compile another collection like this one for later in the week.

SCÁTH NA DÉITH

I was very impressed by this Irish band’s 2015 EP, The Horrors of Old (reviewed here) and I’ve been meaning to write about this album for a long time, ever since it came out in mid-January. I kept delaying until I could find the time to write something long, detailed, and adequately reflective of the enthusiasm I have for it. And then I realized that day may never come. Turning even one new person onto the album would be worth something as meager as this little “review” — better this than further procrastination.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ASHEN HORDE — “THE ALCHEMIST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 142017
 

 

Ashen Horde was spawned within the bleak, frost-bitten desolation of… Los Angeles. Originally the solo project of Trevor Portz, Ashen Horde has released a handful of EPs and two albums since 2013, and with an expanded line-up Ashen Horde is today releasing a new digital and 7″ vinyl EP named The Alchemist through their new label Transcending Obscurity Records. To commemorate the event, we have a stream of the two tracks on The Alchemist.

Joining Trevor Portz (who performs guitar and bass) on The Alchemist are vocalist Stevie Boiser and drummer Jeremy Portz. This new EP is a precursor to the band’s next full-length album, which will also be released by Transcending Obscurity, and it’s a mind-bending and unpredictable two-song trip. Continue reading »

ONCE HUMAN: “EVOLUTION”

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Mar 142017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the second album by Once Human, which was released in February by earMUSIC.)

As much as I like to talk shit about bands who are bad or try too hard to be edgy (though not on this site), I’m ALWAYS open to bands changing or making dramatic improvements in their sound. It’s always possible for a band to redeem themselves, and sometimes it’s possible for a band to release an album so good that the detractors have to concede the improvement lest they be convicted of perpetual intellectual dishonesty.

We all had that laugh at Once Human, a metalcore band featuring most notably Logan Mader of Machine Head fame. They released that embarrassing “You Cunt” song that not only wasn’t anything special, the name itself just lacked class and really felt like it was going for cheap nü-metal levels of shock value. We laughed this band so hard into oblivion that they removed any promotional traces of their debut. You’ve got to do some digging now to even realize that Once Human HAS a debut album. But something dramatic has happened to this band. Continue reading »

ARCHIVIST: “CONSTRUCT”

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Mar 142017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the multinational group Archivist, which was released near the end of February.)

Clocking in at a formidable sixty-eight minutes in length, Construct is the second album from Austrian/English/German collective Archivist, consisting of ten intricately composed tracks of audacious, atmosphere-drenched Post-Black/Post-Metal/Post-Rock proggery designed to infiltrate and stimulate both the body and the mind.

True, occasionally the band’s ambition slightly outstrips their execution, and the album as a whole doesn’t quite have the same sense of coherence as their self-titled debut, but the sheer scope of its sound, coupled with the band’s impressive ability to seamlessly transition between breathy, ethereal ambience and searing metallic catharsis, makes it one incredibly compelling listen all the same. Continue reading »

EX DEO: “THE IMMORTAL WARS”

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Mar 132017
 

 

(DGR reviews the new album by the Italian band Ex Deo, which was released last month by Napalm Records. Okay, they’re really from Canada.)

One of the common narratives for a band returning from hiatus is the “boy, has it been a long wait for a new disc” lead-off, and 90% of the time these are generally correct. Usually a group returns to fans desperate for new material and the wait, after a while, no longer feels like an eternity and quickly becomes just another fun fact. Any long wait tends to do that.

This is not the case with Kataklysm mainman Maurizio Iacono’s Roman-themed symphonic death metal side project Ex Deo. In fact, Ex Deo enjoyed one of the shortest formal hiatuses (hiati? hiatus’?) I’ve heard of, with the project being put on hold in early 2014, two years after the release of the album Caligvla, and then being reactivated in late 2015 to work on the album that would eventually become their new disc, this year’s The Immortal Wars.

I generally enjoyed Caligvla, so I was one of those who was initially bummed out by the hibernation of this Kataklysm-save-for-one person project, and then just as immediately excited by the prospect of a new disc. Granted, when you look at it on paper, there is a five-year gap between albums. Continue reading »

REPLACIRE: “DO NOT DEVIATE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Mar 102017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Boston-based Replacire, which will be released by Season of Mist on March 17, 2017.)

How do you like your Death Metal? Old-School? New School? Proudly Uneducated?

How about Prog, how do you feel about that? Positive? Negative? Oddly ambivalent?

How about a band which mixes the pummelling intensity of Dying Fetus with the proggy eccentricity of Leprous, along with shades of both Yattering and The Faceless?

Sound good? Continue reading »

DEVILISH ART: “TEMPLE OF DESINTEGRATION”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 102017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the second album by the Ukrainian black metal band Devilish Art, independently released at the end of January.)

 

I really love it when black metal meets the harshness and chill of the heavier side of industrial. Khonsu has done a good job of this, and of course there are bands such as Mysticum. Mysticum suffers, though, from that same rythmic stagnation issue I mentioned in my recent Cirith Gorgor review. There still needs to be dynamism, interesting transitions, and tasteful incorporation to really drive the elements home together in a way that feels alive and organic.

Devilish Art’s Temple Of Desintegration is my first exposure to them. They have a debut, but I haven’t listened. Devilish Art play a very riffy style of black metal that reminds me a lot of Naglfar and Old Man’s Child mixed with harsh industrial and electronic elements in an impressive cohesion. Engaging in both its hybridization and in its pure, singular stylistic moments, this is an album in the black metal realm that’s going to stick with me. Continue reading »

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