MALTHUSIAN: “BELOW THE HENGIFORM”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Apr 072015
 

 

Malthusian’s debut demo MMXIII (touched upon here at our site) was an auspicious start to their career, but they have taken significant strides forward on their new EP Below the Hengiform. It would not be hyperbole to say that it now places this Irish band among the elite ranks of blackened death metal practitioners on a global stage.

According to this recent interview of the band’s guitarist/vocalist, the “hengiform” referred to in the EP’s title was an Iron Age enclosure, a “ring fort” in which there is archaeological evidence that ritual sacrifices were performed, “like a gateway between the worlds of the living and the dead”. With that obscure yet evocative reference as the banner above this new recording, Malthusian have created a listening experience that suits the title: The music is obscure, ritualistic, and supernatural in its aura, and it introduces something new to the lexicon of extreme metal.

From the beginning, Malthusian have blended elements of doom into the formulas of chaos that are typically found in the blackened death sub-genre, and they continue to do so here. The music has a massive, distorted low end, filled with dissonant down-tuned riffs, deep grinding/groaning bass lines, and a percussive mix that’s heavy on the toms and the kick drum, and the band have a penchant for dropping into a staggering pace with repeating musical motifs that exude a thick atmosphere of imminent catastrophe. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SERPENTRANCE — “THE BESEIGED SANCTUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 022015
 

 

I first came across the Russian band Serpentrance almost one year ago because a Facebook friend had posted a link to their first single, a killing track named “Obeisance To The Antiquity of Sin”. Details about the band were virtually non-existent, but I wrote about the song and I became their 60th “like” on Facebook. Two months later, a second Serpentrance hymn surfaced, a track named “Aphotic Temples”, and I wrote about that one, too. I still couldn’t find any details about the band, though by then their Facebook presence had risen to 294 likes. The word was spreading by word of mouth.

More months passed, and then in February of this year I saw the announcement that those worshippers of Total Death in Canada’s Vault of Dried Bones had released the first Serpentrance EP, a limited cassette edition named The Besieged Sanctum. It includes both of the songs identified above (though the title of “Obeisance” has been shortened to “Sin”), plus two others — and today we shudder to bring you a premiere of one of those other songs, a monstrous offering of primeval death metal named “The Tongueless Oracle”. But first, a few words about the EP as a whole. Continue reading »

“MOERAE”: A SPLIT BY AWE, VACANTFIELD, AND END

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Mar 312015
 

 

(We welcome back guest contributor Gorger, who reviews a new split release by three Greek bands — Awe, Vacantfield, and End. For those with Scandinavian linguistic skills, check out Gorger’s Metal.

Me writing this post was triggered by the fact that this release was leaked more than a week prior to the release date. What kind of a person with actual love for metal would even consider doing such a thing? I can, to an extent, understand why some people download (that is a different discussion altogether). However, I can not understand those who supply others with pirated metal. Is it the need for admiration? To be respected like some generous Santa? At least bloody wait ’til the album’s released, you fucking retard!

But I’m not going to do a lecture on the subject of pirating. Rather, I’m going to promote this split and give three good bands some well-earned attention. What you see above is a marvelous rendition of the Moerae. Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough. It was painted by Vamon VII, who also created the rest of the gatefold paintings.

Three Greek black metal bands with varied years of experience each contribute to present one (approximately) 17-minute-long song. All of them offer rawness, intensity, and suggestion (hypnotic, that is), and the tracks suit each other surprisingly well, despite differences in production, which is something that is also fitting, as they are bonded together by a concept. It feels natural to do this short review, song by song, band by band. Continue reading »

BANDS YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING TO: FELL RUIN

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Mar 242015
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli introduces us to a band from the Detroit area named Fell Ruin.)

I found out about Fell Ruin through the vocalist from a Michigan band we’ve covered here, Scorned Deity. Brian Sheehan hit me up, wanting me to check out another project of his who’ve finally gotten to release their first bit of music after some time. I love Scorned Deity, so I thought I’d see what he was doing with Fell Ruin.

Fell Ruin are definitely worth your time. I can’t quite describe what they do, but in an attempt to give you an idea, I’ll say it’s basically blackened death grind doom sludge? I don’t even know. It’s riveting stuff though, and savage like a pack of feral hyenas. Continue reading »

DELIVERED AT THE SPEED OF PRINT: BLACK AND WHITE DISCOVERIES — SIBERIAN HELL SOUNDS, A BAND OF ORCS, AETHER REALM

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Mar 162015
 

 

(DGR hath delivered the following round-up of two new EPs and one new single.)

It’s been a little while since I’ve had time to really trawl around the internet and pen up one of these humongous roundups — mostly because smaller descriptions have been mutating into full album reviews. Often, I’ve used this kind of feature to help folks catch up with stuff they might have missed (or that we missed) and discover things that may have happened weeks ago, but flew under our collective radars. This time we’re having a little fun and attempting to bring a theme with this one — the theme of desaturated artwork, because what is more METAL than black-and-white artwork?

The answer is “nothing”, for it is bereft of all color, like our hardened and blackened souls. So I present unto you the most recent collection of things I have found, which actually share not one, but two things connected to the printed format: They are in black-and-white, and I was really fucking slow in writing about them and getting them out to you. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: TUSSK — “PAR T. ANIMAL”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 132015
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews a new two-song offering by Tussk from Staffordshire, England.)

So last Friday I played my first show of 2015 with Beyond Grace, alongside fellow Nottingham natives The Five Hundred (think a more melodically-inclined Lamb of God) and The Winter Hill Syndicate (melodic/metallic/misanthropic hardcore), and bewhiskered Staffordshire riff-mongers Tussk… and it’s the latter band I’ve come here to talk about today.

Now Tussk don’t claim to be reinventing the wheel in the slightest, and their whiskey-soaked strut and shimmy certainly bears more than a few similarities to the cock-sure chaos of Every Time I Die… but after knocking back a couple of heavy doses of their high-proof, high-voltage riffery, each one accompanied by a chaser of smooth, bluesy swagger, I doubt it will matter to you whether you’ve been down this road before or not… what’s important is who’s doing the driving! Continue reading »

GRIND YOUR HEART OUT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Feb 122015
 

 

(Austin Weber brings us a collection of short reviews of grind core albums that have caught his fancy.)

I’m backlogged on metal I want to write about, including a diverse wealth of different-sounding grind bands I feel are worth mentioning. So here is a grind dump of grind bands whose names all coincidentally start with the letter C (except Executive Task Distraction, who have fucked that up). They all happen to kick major ass as well.

Also, watch how many times I say the word “grind”! Since grind is short, sweet, and in your face; the write-ups will be similarly brief. The last two bands give away their albums for free. Freedom is grind, free grind is freedom. Grind yer heart out!

Cave Moth – The Black Lodge

Cave Moth sound like the result of what would happen if you took every crooked and dark element of Gaza and condensed them into a hyper-violent grind format with a bit of mathcore influence and supported by a fuckload of stark dissonance. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PORTA NIGRA — “FEMME FATALE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Feb 082015
 

 

Thanks to a Facebook post from KevinP, I learned that on Friday Debemur Morti Productions released a new digital single by the German duo known as Porta Nigra. It consists of a new song named “Femme Fatale”, which will appear on the band’s second album Kaiserschnitt (due for release later this year), and a remix of “Megalomaniac” from the band’s excellent debut album Fin de Siècle. The remix was prepared by T.T. of the Austrian black metal band Abigor.

There are some truly hair-raising screams and some jagged growls in “Femme Fatale”, but it’s also an exception to our rule, as you’ll discover. You will also discover a dark, decadent, mid-paced rocker that’s powerfully infectious — the song’s central riff is licensed to kill, and there’s a cool, squalling solo in it, too. Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: ESCHER — “THE GROUND IS MISSING”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Feb 042015
 

(Austin Weber reviews a new EP by Escher from Raleigh, North Carolina.)

It’s been very interesting to witness the influence Between The Buried And Me has had on the scene. Because of their eclecticism, few if any have tried to truly copy them, but instead have taken cues from their songwriting style and their ideas about how to make aggressively focused yet complex, progressive-minded metal. Joining the pack of new-school prog metal in this vein are the Raleigh, North Carolina band Escher. One can only guess and hope that their name is a nod to the famed Dutch artist M.C. Escher.

The band just dropped an impressive new EP called The Ground Is Missing on January 20th. As suggested above, they owe a big songwriting debt to Between The Buried And Me, and to some degrees a stylistic one as well. Where they’ve made the music their own, though, is in a way similar to the path followedfellow young progsters The Odious — by infusing their key influence with snippets from technical death metal, earth-shaking deathcore, and a few djent-y chugs. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: URFAUST, IDOLATRY, ADDAURA

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jan 202015
 

 

This is a collection of recent music I heard over the last 24 hours that I want to recommend. As the post title suggests, the music is loosely connected by elements of black metal — and I do mean “loosely”, especially in the case of the first song.

URFAUST

I first learned of the Dutch two-man band Urfaust when our long-time supporter Utmu wrote about them in a guest post two years ago, a post I would commend to people who are new to Urfaust. Even today, I’ve still only dabbled in the band’s previous recordings, but enough to recognize that their approach to black metal is highly distinctive.

More than four years have passed since their last album, but Germany’s Ván Records is now poised to release a new 12″ vinyl EP from the band. Entitled Apparitions, it features painted artwork by ThornyThoughts Artwork. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries