BURIED: “OCULUS ROT”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 232021
 

 

(The subject of this latest recommendation and review by Vonlughlio is the new album by the Dutch band Buried, which was released on February 14th by Brutal Mind.)

Today I have the opportunity to write about a project from the Netherlands named Buried who have been around since 2013 and just released their debut album Oculus Rot via Brutal Mind. Before this release they had a 2013 EP Tenebrous that I have not had the chance to listen to. Therefore, coming into this new album I had no conception of what they would sound like.

However, I did know that three of their members were part of the legendary band Pyaemia, who are held in the BDM community as a classic band due to their 1998 EP Cranial Blowout and their 2001 album Cerebral Cereal. That material is highly regarded as a pure representation of what BDM was at the time of its release. To this day the material is loved and considered as among the great releases of all time in the genre. Continue reading »

BLEEDING ANTLERS: “STAGMATA”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 222021
 

 

(It looks like Andy Synn had as much fun writing this review of Bleeding Antlers‘ debut album as he did listening to it — and he had a LOT of fun doing that.)

Heavy Metal is, as we all know, a “no fun allowed” zone.

It’s a place for serious musicians to write serious songs about serious subjects, riddled with serious darkness, while wearing their most serious faces.

The thing is, no-one seems to have told London lotharios Bleeding Antlers that, because their debut album, Stagmata (yes, there’s even a pun in the title) is one of the most ridiculously riff-happy and unashamedly fun experiences I’ve had in a long, long time.

Don’t go making the mistake of thinking the band are a joke, however.

While the group clearly aren’t taking themselves too seriously, the music itself is more than capable of standing on its own two (or four) feet, while also answering the age-old question… what would happen if you took the catchiest bits of Candlemass, the hookiest parts of Paradise Lost, added a dash of the grim grandeur of Primordial and a touch of almost Nu-Metal-ish groove, and then laced the whole thing with a hefty helping of folk-goth glamour, Hammer-horror camp, and drunken satanic swagger?

Well, you’d have a hell of a good time, I can tell you that. Continue reading »

SWAMPBEAST: “SEVEN EVILS SPAWNED FROM SEVEN HEADS”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 222021
 

 

(This is Todd Manning‘s review of the new album by the SoCal band Swampbeast, which was released in mid-February by Translation Loss Records.)

Outsiders may not realize that there are swamps in Los Angeles, but Death Metal trio Swampbeast have arrived to show us what kind of madness lurks in those fetid waters. Their debut, Seven Evils Spawned from Seven Heads, just issued on Translations Lost Records, is a nightmarish journey of blackened Death Metal that threatens to drown the listener in a miasma of filth.

While not exactly revolutionizing their chosen genre, Swampbeast burst out the gates with a sound of their own, surprisingly well-developed given their lack of history. The hammering assault of opener “Orcs Anvil” echoes the bludgeoning of Entombed’s Left Hand Path, but they also check some Morbid Angel and Black Metal boxes as well. Second track, “The Blind God” adds the subterranean mystique of Portal into the mix to great effect. While the speed of the opener remains, a great deal of evil atmosphere works its way in. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BECERUS — “PRIMEVAL IGNORANTIA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 222021
 

 

Rising from Palermo, Sicily, Becerus is a new band who openly declare their love for ’90s death metal, and the first demonstration of their devotion is a debut album named Homo Homini Brutus, whose title alone provides significant clues to what Becerus have done with their music. That savage cover art up there, created by Karl Dahmer, provides another significant clue. But an even more tangible clue comes in the form of the album track we’re premiering today.

Before we get to that, you should know that none other than Everlasting Spew Records, who know a thing or two about slaughtering death metal, will be releasing the album on April 30th. The song that has been chosen for the first premiere is “Primeval Ignorantia” — and that’s another title that’s in keeping with part (but only part) of this band’s overall aesthetic (though “aesthetic” is probably too fancy a word for what they do). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CREEPING FEAR — “HATEGOD TRIUMPH”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 222021
 

 

The Italian maestro Paolo Girardi has created the artwork for so many metal album covers that trying to count the number would be a daunting task. But in the humble opinion of this writer the one he created for the new album by the French band Creeping Fear is among his best (and most frightening), and surely will be an enticement for fans to pick up a physical edition of the record — IF the record is any good. Is it any good?

Well, hell yes, it is very good indeed, a big slab of red meat for slavering carnivores of death metal in the vein of such bands as Hate Eternal, Immolation, and Cannibal Corpse. The name of the album is Hategod Triumph, and today we present evidence of its brutal, barbaric, and unhinged attractions through the premiere of the title track in advance of the album’s March 26th release by Dolorem Records. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: PALUS SOMNI, RITUALS OF THE DEAD HAND, CONSTANT NAUSEA, COLDCELL, HEGEROTH, MORK, VIPÈRE

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Feb 212021
 

 

In exploring what I might choose for today’s column I wound up going down a weird rabbit hole. By chance, the first few tracks I picked put me in a chilling frame of mind, and in sorting through others I decided to just stay there, immersed in a mood of cold, frightening eeriness. However, I did decide to pick a couple of more carnal (for want of a better word) selections to finish off this compilation, to shake off those other moods like a wet dog shedding water.

There’s obviously a lot of music here, but maybe not as much as you might guess because until the very end these are all advance tracks rather than full releases. So don’t be daunted… dive all the way in….

PALUS SOMNI (UK/US)

I’m beginning with “Unholy Cosmic Quintessence“, the first advance song from the debut album of Palus Somni, a trio that combines (to quote the label) “the twisted dissonant riffs of Stroda (known for this work on U.K. based Industrial / Black Metal act Decoherence), the thundering vicious percussions of Eoghan (known for his work on U.S. Black Metal bands Akhlys and Aoratos) and the distant cold icy screams of Imber (from U.S. based record label Noxial)”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TROBEROTH — “MY WILL IS GONE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 212021
 

 

Today we have a rare Sunday premiere for you, a lyric video for a song named “My Will Is Gone” off the second album from the Costa Rican death/thrashing marauders in Troberoth. That album, Fallen Angel, will be co-released on April 2nd by GrimmDistribution (Ukraine) and Sanatorio Records (Costa Rica).

The song is a hell-raising thrash attack, but it quickly becomes apparent that Troberoth‘s song-writing approach is more varied than usual for this genre, and that their dynamic and multi-faceted song-writing is made possible by the impressive instrumental skill that every band member brings to the table. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SPECTRAL WOUND, WEREWOLVES, MNHG, SOLAR DEMISE, WOLFANGER, FEAST FOR THE CROWS, MATT HECKLER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Feb 202021
 

 

There’s always a kind of random quality about these weekend round-ups, mainly because what I choose to investigate in my listening is itself a very random process. This one may be more random than most because I jumped around in my listening list to make sure I included some groups I knew nothing about, and wound up picking some of those for the last four items in the following collection. I also decided to throw you a big curveball at the end.

SPECTRAL WOUND (Canada)

I easily could have saved this first song for tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column, but it put such a thrill in me when I first heard it this morning that it would have pained me too wait. It’s such a glorious bonfire of sound, a racing whirl of exultant harmonized riffing, scorching vocals, and jet-speed drumming (which occasionally shifts gears). There’s a brief (and unnecessary) interlude in the middle, and then we’re right back in the midst of this brilliant spinning pillar of fire. Ironically, the name of the song is “Frigid and Spellbound“. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: A NIGHT IN THE ABYSS / ANTRE / TRIVAX

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Feb 192021
 

 

(In this article Andy Synn reviews three recent EPs from bands based in the UK.)

Huh… seems like a while now since I last did one of these “Best of British” columns (I’m not sure exactly how long, I haven’t checked).

And while it’s not like I’ve been neglecting my “local” scene – I heaped praise upon Thundering Hooves right at the start of the year, for example – it’s probably about time to catch up with what’s going on in our ever more divided kingdom. Continue reading »

DGR REVIEW ARCHIVES (PART 4): THE AMENTA — “REVELATOR”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 192021
 

 

(We present the fourth and final installment from an avalanche of reviews that DGR delivered unto us earlier this week, and today’s edition focuses on the newest album by Australia’s The Amenta, which is being released today by Debemur Morti Productions.)

It’s been a good bit of time since we last heard from the Australian amorphous extreme metal genre-hoppers The Amenta. Their sound has expanded widely over the years, with releases that range from a blackened death metal vein, to industrialized monstrosities, and even some straightforward noise and black metal collisions for fun. I’ve even seen them granted the genre-descriptor of ‘terminator metal’ a few times, given their favoring of distorted electronic backings that can often sound like failing machinery.

By the time of 2013’s Flesh Is Heir the group’s sound was firmly planted in a vast maelstrom of industrial noise and blackened death metal, and it is a release that we have yelled about for a long time – largely my fault – at this here site. The eight years since then, though, have been relatively quiet and have seen The Amenta‘s various musicians spread far and wide. It seemed for a little while that the group would be slowly shadowed out – that is, until the announcement of the group’s newest album Revelator. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries