ARCHIVIST: “CONSTRUCT”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 142017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the multinational group Archivist, which was released near the end of February.)

Clocking in at a formidable sixty-eight minutes in length, Construct is the second album from Austrian/English/German collective Archivist, consisting of ten intricately composed tracks of audacious, atmosphere-drenched Post-Black/Post-Metal/Post-Rock proggery designed to infiltrate and stimulate both the body and the mind.

True, occasionally the band’s ambition slightly outstrips their execution, and the album as a whole doesn’t quite have the same sense of coherence as their self-titled debut, but the sheer scope of its sound, coupled with the band’s impressive ability to seamlessly transition between breathy, ethereal ambience and searing metallic catharsis, makes it one incredibly compelling listen all the same. Continue reading »

REPLACIRE: “DO NOT DEVIATE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Mar 102017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Boston-based Replacire, which will be released by Season of Mist on March 17, 2017.)

How do you like your Death Metal? Old-School? New School? Proudly Uneducated?

How about Prog, how do you feel about that? Positive? Negative? Oddly ambivalent?

How about a band which mixes the pummelling intensity of Dying Fetus with the proggy eccentricity of Leprous, along with shades of both Yattering and The Faceless?

Sound good? Continue reading »

JUNIUS: “ETERNAL RITUALS FOR THE ACCRETION OF LIGHT”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  5 Responses »
Mar 082017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Boston’s Junius, followed by a full music stream.)

One thing I’ve observed over the years is how often people conflate the statement “I don’t like this” with the judgement that “this isn’t good”.

Sometimes it means that someone has decided that just because they don’t like something, that means it can’t be good… but it also often means that people get offended when you say you don’t like something, because they immediately think you’re saying it isn’t any good.

Which, obviously, isn’t necessarily the case.

Why am I saying all this? Well, it’s because even though I definitely do like this album (a lot), I don’t quite like it as much as 2011’s Reports from the Threshold of Death.

But… that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as good. Continue reading »

THE BEST OF GERMAN, 2017 (PART 1): DESERTED FEAR / GLARE OF THE SUN / NAILED TO OBSCURITY

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Mar 072017
 

 

(Andy Synn combines reviews of three 2017 albums by German metal bands.)

You know who’ve been absolutely killing it over the last few years? The Germans. Those guys (and gals) definitely know their Metal. From the Thrash to the Prog to the Black to the Death… and every permutation in between… our Germanic brothers and sisters have produced a significant number of my favourite albums over the last couple of years.

And, so far, it looks like 2017 is going to be no different, as the year has already seen a number of high-quality releases from across the metallic spectrum, some of which I’m highlighting here today, and some more of which I’m going to bring you in the next week or so.

So, let us begin, shall we? Continue reading »

THE OMINOUS CIRCLE: “APPALLING ASCENSION”

 Album Reviews  17 Responses »
Mar 032017
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Portugal’s The Ominous Circle.)

Let’s be clear about one thing straight away. As band names go, “The Ominous Circle” is… not great.

Oh, it could undoubtedly be worse, and I’m sure that, when growled with sufficient gravitas from the stage, it probably sounds nice and evil, but when you consider that other, equally valid names might be “The Terrible Triangle” or “The Sinister Parallelogram”, well…

But, as the saying goes, a rose by any other name would still be as horrifically heavy, and I’ll be damned if these guys don’t deliver the goods on Appalling Ascension. Continue reading »

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 »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries