(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Conforza from New Hampshire, U.S.).
Isn’t it great when you stumble across a new, hitherto unheard, band, totally out of the blue?
Case in point, resurrected and reformatted New Hampshire metallers Conforza released their brand-new album, the aptly-titled Revival, last week and I’ve been listening to it pretty much non-stop ever since. Continue reading »
I must begin with Orso‘s video for the song “Mitraillette“. I intended to blurt about it as soon as I saw it almost three weeks ago, but learned soon after that we would be hosting the premiere today of Orso‘s new album, Paninoteca, so I held my tongue (barely), with pincers. Now my tongue can wag.
In watching the video I had a difficult time concentrating on the music — not that you really need to concentrate, since you can feel the music quite powerfully in your core, even without focusing your mind — because of the video’s strange combination of humor, creepiness, and the ability to induce salivation. For several minutes I couldn’t quite figure out why it was making me uneasy, watching Orso‘s band members intently devour sandwiches, and then it hit me that their heads don’t move… and they have no ears, or at least none that you can see. Continue reading »
(Norway-based contributor Karina Noctum returns to us with the following interview of Mattias Hemminby of the Norwegian bands Eldamar and Askheimr.)
This is an interview with Mattias Hemminby about his one-man Black Metal project Eldamar and his new project called Askheimr.
When it comes to Eldamar, I think that the music has a great atmosphere influenced by Burzum and the greatness of Lord of the Rings. I have always found Eldamar pretty peculiar and interesting due to its pretty harmonious composition. Eldamar’s style is ambitious and aesthetically beautiful and not easy to achieve, especially taking into account all the limitations a one-man underground project faces, but in spite of this the result is favorable and I enjoy the music a lot. I think it has a touch of uniqueness in the way it has been put together, and of course its “Norwegianness” surfaces. adding a lot to it.
I have always been interested in one-man projects, and this is another one that has not only captivated me but many others. Eldamar has been well-received in the atmospheric Black Metal world since its inception and now it has a fan base. But the same composer has engaged in other endeavors in the form of Askheimr, which is a Black/Death band that draws from Scandinavian influences, particularly from Finland.
What follows is an introduction to both bands, an inquiry into particulars about composition and the thoughts behind Eldamar and Askheimr, and what we can expect in the future. Continue reading »
Sins of the Damned began in Santiago, Chile, in November 2013 with the aim of creating speed metal with South American authenticity, and devoid of lyrics that might embrace fantasy. From 2014 through 2017 they released a series of demos and splits, and a 2017 compilation collected much of that work. Now they are about to release their first album, Striking the Bell of Death, with a due date of May 3rd through Shadow Kingdom Records.
On this new album, Sins of the Damned have created something iconic, something that summons so much of what has made fierce and fiery heavy metal so cathartic and so addictive for so many decades — and in the case of this band’s own style, so dazzling and grand. The song we present today, “Victims of Hate“, is a prime example of those qualities. Continue reading »
I remember being left in a state of gleeful astonishment when I first heard the music of The Pogues. There they were, playing raucous punk music with old acoustic instruments, with tin whistle and accordion, with mandolin and hurdy-gurdy, with banjo and bodhrán. They caught the spirit of punk and made it seem like a natural outgrowth of Celtic drinking songs and folk dances.
The music of Grylle leaves me in a similar state of gleeful wonder, translating the spirit (and some of the sounds) of black metal through ancient instrumentation and the enthralling accents of antique melody. The music and the inspirations may have been born within that most “outsider” of extreme metal genres, but Grylle has then stepped outside of even that, while keeping one foot in the black circle. Continue reading »
(Here’s DGR’s review of the new album by the Italian extreme metal band Hiss From the Moat, which was released by Salem Rose Music and M-Theory Audio on February 22nd, and features cover artwork by Stefano Bonora.)
The family tree of the hyper-blasting death metal groups from Italy is a densely populated series of branches that seem to spiral every outwards with a tremendous number of offshoots and tied-together snarls that could make fractal patterns jealous.
This specific region and genre have found more musicians crossing paths than might even be initially obvious. Hiss From The Moat‘s branch of the tree has always been a strange outlier, taking their genre’s penchant for near-relentless and precise brutal death metal and combining it with the heavy atmospherics and low-tuned guitar batterings of blackened death metal — like a latter day Hour Of Penance crashing headlong into Apostasy/Evangelion-era Behemoth. Continue reading »
(This is Vonlughlio’s review of the debut album by the North Carolina death metal band Putrefying Cadaverment, which will be released on April 14th by Sevared Records.)
It’s been a few weeks since my last write-up, and what a great way to break the silence — by reviewing the debut album of North Carolina’s Putrefying Cadaverment, entitled Indiscriminate Butchery, to be released via Sevared Records.
Before this, the band only released two demos and one EP named Necrosadistic Defilement before going on a lengthy hiatus. They were more slam/BDM oriented and had good riffs, but although the overall idea was interesting I had mixed feelings about the earlier music. Continue reading »
Juanjo Castellano strikes again, with a wonderful piece of artwork (augmented by a Mark Riddick logo) for the debut album by Goregӓng, a piece that’s both reminiscent of the great Kristian “Necrolord” Wåhlin and also captures the feeling of the album title itself: Neon Graves. And in turn, that album title is an entirely fitting preview of the music that Goregӓng have created, which is preternaturally vibrant and morbidly gruesome (among other things).
That the album is so sure-handed and so murderously exuberant should come as no surprise, given that Goregӓng is the work of two men — Jeramie Kling and Taylor Nordberg — who between them have resumes that include such names as Ribspreader, Wombbath, Venom Inc., and The Absence. After an introductory EP in 2017, they’ve now delivered a compelling full-length amalgam of death metal, crust, and grind. A couple of songs from Neon Graves have already surfaced, and now we’ve got one more for you. This one is “Cathedral of Chemicals“. Continue reading »
(In this post Todd Manning reviews the new album by Indiana’s Conjurer, which will be released on April 5th, and introduces our premiere of a song from the album.)
There is a tendency in the world of Metal to try to overload every available inch of sonic space with brutality. It’s an understandable and often effective approach, but at times, bands who utilize a more stripped-down strategy are equally capable of blowing the listener’s mind and ears. It is this kind of sense of refinement that is evident in spades on the new album Sigils by Indianapolis-based Sludge/Doom quintet Conjurer.
For anyone familiar with their debut, Old World Ritual, their latest is not a radical departure from the sound they established there, but is a logical and powerful step forward. Continue reading »
(On March 27th our Atlanta-based contributor Tør made his way to The Masquerade venue to take in performances by Aenimus, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Hypocrisy as part of their ongoing national tour. He sent us this report, along with a large batch of his own excellent photos from the show. For a full list of remaining dates on the tour, go here.)
I walk in late and it’s already happening. Openers Aenimus have just taken the stage and are blazing through their set. The crowd is into it: with every riff, the front-row crowd inches closer to the stage monitors. I stand on the side and enjoy the gig -— I like what I’m hearing. The metalcore-tinged proggy riffs take me to a place I’ve been to before but can’t quite recall. I’ve liked what I’ve heard of the new album, Dreamcatcher (Nuclear Blast) so far, and the band doesn’t disappoint live. Despite the solid start to the night, nothing prepares me for what is to come soon. Continue reading »