VIOLET COLD: “ANOMIE”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Mar 022017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the wonderful new album by Violet Cold.)

The phenomenon of the “one-man Black Metal band” is certainly an interesting one.

On the one hand it really does mean that the band’s music will always be the product of a singular creative voice, and often results in said band maintaining a highly prolific writing/recording schedule, as there’s no need to arrange multiple schedules or to balance the writing process among a number of competing ideas.

But just because you CAN string together some hissy riffs, programmed blastbeats, and low-fi vocals about hating the world into a semblance of a song, doesn’t mean that you SHOULD, and just because you *love* Black Metal it doesn’t mean that you have anything original or interesting to offer the genre.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some truly phenomenal examples out there of solitary artists who possess the necessary vision and distinctive voice to stand out from the pack – such as Leviathan, Infestus, and The Clearing Path, to name but a few – but, by and large, the relative ease with which anyone can put together their own “one-man Black Metal band” has led to a glut of mediocre albums and EPs which do little more than recycle the same old sounds and the same old stories.

And then… there’s Violet Cold. Continue reading »

MY MOST ANTICIPATED ALBUMS OF 2017 (BY ANDY SYNN)

 Metal News  19 Responses »
Mar 012017
 


Dyscarnate in the studio…

 

(Andy Synn shares a list of his most anticipated releases of 2017… along with musical reminders… and a request for your own most-anticipated releases.)

Somehow, even though it’s only March, I’m already well behind in terms of covering new and upcoming releases. Partially that’s due to how many albums from last year I still had left to catch up on during January/February, but it’s also a testament to the sheer number of killer albums which have been released already in this year.

Now it was around this time last year (in fact, I just checked, and it was almost exactly one year ago) that I published a list of five albums whose impending release had me afroth with anticipation, including two albums (Death Fortress, Khonsu) which ultimately proved to be two of my absolute favourites of the year… although another two, Nidingr and Decrepit Birth, ended up being delayed until 2017, with the latter still not having a confirmed release date even now…

So, in a vain bid to get ahead of the curve a little, here are five six seven upcoming releases which I’m extremely stoked/jacked/hyped to hear this year, starting with… Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 82: ANOMALIE

 THE SYNN REPORT  2 Responses »
Feb 272017
 

 

(For the 82nd edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy reviews the discography of Anomalie, including the new album Visions, which is set for release on March 17 — and from which we will be bringing a very special premiere… soon.)

Recommended for fans of: Harakiri For The Sky, Insomnium, Ghost Brigade

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s a certain clique of bands based in and around the Germany/Austria area who, because they’re influenced by Black Metal but don’t fit neatly into that particular box, are often mislabelled as “Post Black Metal”, either through a misapprehension of what that term actually refers to, or through sheer laziness on the part of the writer/reviewer.

This loose collective of acts, many of whom are frequent touring partners and who often share live members, exists on a spectrum, with the most overtly blackened artists (Der Weg Einer Freiheit, Agrypnie) occupying one end of the scale, while the other end of things is home to acts like Post-Metal/Post-Hardcore types Thränenkind and the sadly underrated Todtgelichter.

In between these two extremes we find bands like shimmering shoegazers Heretoir (whose new album I’ll be reviewing very soon) and NCS-favourites Harakiri For The Sky, along with today’s featured artist, Austria’s own Anomalie, whose mainman Marrock has performed live with several of the artists mentioned above, and whose latest album – scheduled for release on the 17th of March – goes some way towards finally justifying the “Post Black Metal” tag which has dogged the band ever since their first release. Continue reading »

DARKEST HOUR: “GODLESS PROPHETS & THE MIGRANT FLORA”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 242017
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Darkest Hour.)

Now Darkest Hour’s last album was… how do I put this delicately… a big fat disappointment.

Anodyne and formulaic to a fault, it sounded less like the thrashing melodeath maniacs we’d all come to know and love, and more like a band trying desperately to streamline and sanitise their sound in pursuit of some (arguably long overdue) crossover success.

Heck, the band pretty well said as much in interviews at the time, citing their disappointment at seeing so many of their peers garnering a tonne of mainstream (by Metal standards, at least) attention and commercial success, while they were still struggling for their “big break”, as one of the driving factors behind their shift towards a more generic, Metalcore-friendly sound on their (ultimately sub-par) self-titled endeavour.

But it takes a big man (or, in this case, a big band) to admit when they’ve made a mistake. And, although it may not say so in so many words, Godless Prophets… is not only a heartfelt mea culpa from the DC destroyers, but also just happens to be their heaviest, angriest album since Hiddens Hands… Continue reading »

ANCST: “FURNACE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 222017
 

 

(Andy Synn wrote this review of the new EP by Ancst from Berlin.)

Seeing as how I selected Moloch by Ancst as one of my Personal Top Ten Albums of 2016, it only makes sense that I be the one to cover their brand new EP, Furnace.

Of course, it’s not like the band have been idle in the intervening period between the release of Moloch (March 25th, 2016) and Furnace (February 19th, 2017), having also provided a track (“Arctic Waste”) for a four-way split last April, as well as delivering another extended instrumental EP in the form of October’s Stormcaster.

It’s simply that, as endlessly prolific as the band are, some of their releases stand out more than others.

And Furnace is one of them. Continue reading »

CATCHING UP ON 2016 -– BEDOWYN / KORONAL / MELDING PLAGUE

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Feb 202017
 


Bedowyn

(Andy Synn contributes three more reviews of releases from 2016, focusing on the music of Bedowyn (North Carolina), Koronal (Poland), and Melding Plague (Finland).)

Ok, last one. Deep breath. Big finish.

Here are the final three albums from 2016 which I have handpicked for your listening pleasure.

I hope you enjoy them, and I sincerely hope you’ve all discovered a gem or two over the last few weeks of these “catch-up” posts.

I’ll probably be following up on a few of my personal favourites over the next month or so, so we’re not quite done with 2016 just yet, but, for the most part, I’m now going to be switching my focus to albums and EPs from 2017, as I’ve built up quite a backlog over the last several weeks.

In the meantime, however, why not get stuck into the cavalcade of humongous riffs, ear-catching melodies, and badass grooves provided by this triumphant triptych of bands? Continue reading »

CATCHING UP ON 2016: BHAVACHAKRA / ENDOLITH / HAUNTER

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Feb 142017
 

 

(Here we have a trio of reviews by Andy Synn, who’s still not finished with 2016.)

So it looks like, barring some sort of unforeseen intervention by an outside source, this will be my penultimate catch-up post for 2016, and very soon I’ll be able to divert my full attention to new releases – both from lesser-known acts and from bigger names – from 2017.

In the meantime, however, here are three more killer albums from last year that really deserved a lot more attention and acclaim than they received. Continue reading »

SACRED COWS AND THE CRITICAL CONSENSUS

 Mosh Pit  18 Responses »
Feb 112017
 

 

(Andy Synn wrote the following bovine-themed opinion piece.)

Phew, for a group of people often characterised as “rebellious” and “anti-religious”… we metalheads sure do hold more than our fair share of things as sacred and inviolable, don’t we?

Case in point, a certain article last year (which will, for the moment, remain unnamed) dared to question and criticise a particularly famous and highly-regarded album, which of course led to the expected backlash from the sort of knee-jerk reactionaries who like to say things like “this proves you’re a hipster” or “if you don’t like [x] then you don’t like Metal!”

Now while I don’t want this article to develop into a similar bitchfest (again, for such a supposedly “macho” genre, we can certainly be a catty group when something ruffles our petticoats), I do have to say that I thought the article was well-written, and made some cogent points.

I didn’t necessarily agree with its conclusion, but then nor do I think it was wrong to write it, or that the author was just trying to troll people.

Because it is important, sometimes, to go against the grain. To challenge the prevailing orthodoxy and to try to make people think not just about what they like… but about why they like it in the first place.

Sometimes the sacred cow needs to be slaughtered. Or, at least, lightly stabbed. Continue reading »

GLOSON: “GRIMEN”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Feb 092017
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Sweden’s Gloson.)

Don’t you love it/hate it (delete as appropriate) when a band comes along, seemingly out of nowhere, with a debut album so good you struggle to grasp how they’ve actually managed it?

Because that’s exactly what Swedish Post-Sludgebringers Gloson have done. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS (BENIGHTED, HADAL MAW, AVERSION’S CROWN)

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  1 Response »
Feb 082017
 

 

(We present another edition of Andy Synn’s three-line reviews.)

Well, well, well… it looks like I’ve not done one of these since November.

Which I suppose isn’t too surprising, since most of December was dedicated to rounding up the previous twelve months in list form, as well as desperately scrambling to cover as many albums as possible before the end of the year, and most of last month was similarly focussed on catching up on some of the 2016 albums which we/you might have missed.

Thankfully I’m almost done looking backwards (yeah right) and am starting to switch my attention more and more towards new and upcoming albums from this, the year of our lord 2017.

So, in that spirit, here’s three albums of Death/Grind/Core goodness for you all to (hopefully) enjoy. Continue reading »

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