(We present Andy Synn‘s review of the debut full-length by the UK band Thundering Hooves, which was released on January 5th.)
What’s that? Another killer debut from a brand new band helping kick off the new year in style?
Hell, maybe 2021 won’t be so bad after all (musically at least)! Continue reading »
Five years after the release of their self-titled debut album, the barbarous death metal duo from southern Vancouver Island who call themselves Altered Dead are at last ready for the release of their sophomore album, fittingly named Returned To Life. It will be released by two celebrants of slaughtering sound, with Memento Mori handling the CD release on January 25th and Fucking Kill Records discharging vinyl editions on February 28th. And today it’s our sadistic pleasure to share with you the perverse pleasures of a track from the new record named “Thrawing In Agony“.
Altered Dead‘s approach to death metal draws upon the influences of such progenitors as Autopsy, Death Breath, Grave, Asphyx, Darkthrone, Unleashed, Exhumed, and Carnage. Hallowed names indeed, and suggestive of the fact that Altered Dead interweave within their spine-shivering art varying takes on the most grim and ghastly death metal formulations, and therefore don’t sound like clones of anyone. Even more impressive is that only two people are responsible for such mutilating ravages of sound. Continue reading »
The Armenian pagan metal band Ildaruni made an auspicious debut with their 2018 demo Towards Subterranean Realms (which we reviewed here), revealing both a lyrical focus on ancient Armenian history, drawing upon mythology and aspects of occultism, and a musical blending of folk melody, symphonic sweep, and blood-rushing blackened power. Ildaruni are now building upon that impressive demo with their first full-length, Beyond Unseen Gateways, which will be released by Black Lion Records on March 19th.
Thematically, this debut album continues the band’s focus on ancient myths and arcane forces. It is, in the band’s words, “a hymn to the blazing light, which sank into shadowy shrines, to the wild darkness which covered the debris of Ardini, to the bygone flame which enlightens the sanctum of Haldi”, with each song “an indivisible part of a grand ode which explores the height of the Urartian domain and the esoteric knowledge of pagan mysticism.”
The striking cover art of Mark Erskine captures the album’s essential concept, and so does the music, as you’ll discover through our premiere of a lyric video for “Treading he Path of Cryptic Wisdom“. Continue reading »
On Monday of this week when I began the rollout of this list I noted that there were only 11 songs in my massive list of candidates that received more than two nominations among the sources from which I compiled it. Two of those, both of which were on my own personal list, are among the three in this Part of the list. The third one (which I’ve put in the middle of this threesome) is also tremendously good, drawn from an album that has received a lot of completely deserved acclaim.
SELBST
In his review my friend Andy proclaimed Selbst’s Relatos de Angustia one of the best black metal albums of the year (an opinion with which I completely concur). He later added it to his year-end list of Great Albums, and it also took the No. 4 spot on the year-end list by our friend Johan Huldtgren of Obitus. And of course those aren’t the only year-end lists I’ve seen which anointed it in similar fashion (I found it on five of our reader lists, and on many others scatted about the web). Continue reading »
The first word that comes to mind in considering the new music of Dead World Reclamation is extravagant — quickly followed by exhilarating, ingenious, and barbaric. Mark Erskine‘s cover art for this Arizona band’s new album, Aura of Iniquity, is itself astonishing, but make no mistake: it’s not misleading, because the music within is equally striking and no less memorable. And the songs’ lyrical themes are in keeping with the fascinations of the art and the music.
For those who may be familiar with the band’s first album, Sentient, you will be expecting melodic death metal, and that is indeed still at the heart of the band’s creations, but this new album also represents a considerable divergence from what came before. The compositions are even more intricate, and now exhibit even greater technicality in the execution while also bringing into play scintillating keyboards and mesmerizing orchestrations, without stinting on bludgeoning brutality.
As a sign of these changes, and of the kind of experience that spawned all those adjectives in the opening paragraph, we present today a lyric video for an album track named “Heralds of the Formless One” in advance of the record’s release on April 23rd. Continue reading »
Malice Divine is a new solo project from Toronto, Canada. whose self-titled debut album is set for release on February 19th. It’s the work of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ric Galvez, who began composing the album’s music while he was a member of Astaroth Incarnate (whom we’ve written about here in the past) and was also studying as a music major at York University. After Galvez parted ways with Astaroth Incarnate, he finished the rest of the album by writing the guitar solos and the lyrics.
Stylistically, the music draws on a range of melodic black and death metal influences, including Dissection, Death, Wintersun, and Immortal, while also incorporating a lot of jaw-dropping guitar prowess.
As a demonstration of what Malice Divine brings to the table, today we’re premiering a guitar-and-vocal playthrough video for the album’s first advance track, “In Time“, which will be released as a digital single on January 8th. Continue reading »
(Here is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Baltimore-based Celestial Swarm, which was released on January 4th.)
The beginning of any new year is always a time filled with anticipation of what delicious metallic morsels the next twelve months are going to bring.
But we don’t have to look too far, or too hard, to find the first of them, as the debut album from multinational Death Metal brutalisers Celestial Swarm just kicked off 2021 with a major bang. Continue reading »
On the 19th of February the Montreal-based metal band Maudiir will release a second EP. Entitled La Part du Diable, it was inspired by many of the disturbing events that the last year brought us. It follows by almost one year the band’s first EP, Le Temps Peste, and reveals some new dimensions of sound and style, embellishing and extending the black/thrash inspirations that gave birth to the project.
Maudiir is the solo project of F. (ex-Deeply Confused, Tears for the Dead Gods), who also currently leads the prog/thrash metal band Trinity Blast. Through the vehicle of Maudiir, and particularly on this new EP, he brings into play ’80s heavy metal influences alongside black metal and punk, while adding progressive flourishes. We’ve got a fine example of Maudiir’s multi-faceted approach in a song we’re premiering today from the new EP. Its name is “The Slumber“. Continue reading »
Today I’m leaning into death metal with Part 2 of this list, beginning with two songs that juxtapose tested veterans with some precocious teenagers (at least they look like teenagers), and then following that by turning to music from a pair of Germans who’ve been playing death metal in various groups since the mid-’90s.
FURNACE
Rogga Johansson has been, and still is, involved in so many projects that you’d have to possess eidetic memory to recite the list. He continues to spawn new ones at an astonishing rate, while also continuing to punch out albums from some of his oldest bands as if they had access to a fountain of youth. It was thus a surprise that out of all the 2020 albums that had his name associated with it, perhaps the one that has drawn the most acclaim is the newest of them all. Continue reading »
Unless I’m forgetting something (always a possibility) it’s time to wrap up our 2020 LISTMANIA series.
As in years past we posted an extensive series of lists. As usual, some of them were re-postings of lists that appeared at “big platform” web sites and print magazines, and others were prepared by our own stable of race-horse writers. But once again we had a large group of lists from invited band members and other guests. Plus, we’ve again received valuable, extensive lists in reader comments on THIS POST (new lists can still be added there).
In this article I’m setting forth links to all of the 2020 year-end lists that we published, divided into categories and listed within each category in the order of their appearance. For people who are looking for the best metal that 2020 had to offer, these lists and our readers’ lists provide a tremendous resource, as they have in past years. Continue reading »