BECAUSE WITTY YEAR END LIST TITLES ABOUT RUINING THE HOLIDAYS ARE FOR SUCKERS – THE DGR YEAR ENDSTAVAGANZA PART FIVE: 10-1

 LISTMANIA 2024  9 Responses »
Dec 202024
 

 

(We’ve arrived at the final installment of DGR‘s Top 50 list for 2024, which has been unfolding day by day since Monday of this week. Now it’s time for the Top 10.)

Well this is it folks: the big kahuna, the final ten, the end of all ends, the great sandwich in the sky, the pothole to end all potholes, the grandest exercise in feet dragging you have ever seen, the golden egg, the sponsored award, the singularity of all fifty albums that we’ve been talking about over the course of the week, the grand conjuration, the comically oversized rabbit, the final ten…again.

I wish I had prepard a slightly bigger fanfare than this but it is really hard to explain to your local high school that you would like to borrow their marching band for an hour so you can film them playing as they walk by a camera for each album announcement. What I’m getting at here is this is it. After a week long rollout of the fifty albums I’ve enjoyed jamming the hell out of over the course of the year, we’ve accomplished reaching the end.

It’s been a hell of a thrill ride getting up to this point after all the mountains we’ve climbed, epic journeys we have undertaken, the critic-proofing we’ve had to participate in, the general explanations and explorations of gore, the occasional horror show, yet it never occurs to you just how much these things take out of you until you watch Part One of your list run on the website while you’re in the midst of writing up your final few albums for the last part. Needless to say, this fucker is probably coming in hot, so if these final summations (proclamations, conflagrations) of the albums that made my year-end list read like I was in the midst of being eaten alive, it’s probably because they’re a little more panicked than usual. Continue reading »

DARKNESS EVERYWHERE: “TO CONQUER ETERNAL DAMNATION”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 152024
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the debut album by Oakland CA-based Darkness Everywhere, which was released in May by Creator-Destructor Records. The fantastic cover art is by Adam Burke.)

It’s weird to think about how wildly melodeath-ascendant the past few years have been. It’s strange when you’re within the bubble of a nostalgia cycle and are fully aware of it, as opposed to recognizing it from the outside and approaching it more from the cultural anthropology side of things.

There are even projects dedicated to exploring different eras, which is not something you would normally ascribe to a style that saw such a glut of artists in the late ’90s and early ’00s that it almost accidentally codified into the blueprint that was then widely followed to the point of mundanity.

Yet there are projects dedicated to both the retro and modern aspects, and those who split the difference between the two. In the case of musician Ben Murray and his latest exploration of the style in Darkness Everywhere, it’s one made with a ton of influence from that late ’90s to early ’00s period in which melodeath became its own thing and the words for the genre were no longer existing as just an abbreviation of a way to describe a less sewage-obsessed form of death metal. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AL-NAMROOD, AORTES, BLACK SORCERY, COGNITIVE, CRYPT SERMON, DARKNESS EVERYWHERE, GRAND CADAVER, HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY, REZN, VÁSTÍGR, WARDRUNA, BATHORY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 062024
 

Saturdays after Bandcamp Fridays should be named just like hurricanes. I’m left staring hopelessly at the wreckage of the NCS in-box and the high-water marks left by the musical flood, which still hasn’t really receded.

In case you were wondering, an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization maintains and updates the annually rotating list of hurricane names, with one name for each letter of the alphabet, except for Q, U, X, Y, and Z. This year the list begins with Alberto. However, I see no reason not to use the letters omitted by the WMO, so let’s call this Saturday Quorthon.

Let’s listen to these 12 songs, all but the last of which breached the surface of the flood during the last week, while we wait (hopelessly) for the carpet to dry out. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DARKNESS EVERYWHERE — “THE SEVENTH CIRCLE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 222022
 

 

The Bay Area melodic death metal band Darkness Everywhere bring proven talent to the table, harnessing the skills of vocalist/guitarist/drummer Ben Murray (Light This City, Wilderness Dream), guitarist Cameron Stucky (Crepuscle), and renowned producer/engineer Zack Ohren on bass. What’s more, their debut EP also includes guest vocal performances by Laura Nichol (Light This City), John Henry (Darkest Hour), and Xavier from Upon Stone.

The band’s chosen name provides a clue to their vision, but the EP’s title, The Seventh Circle, is an even more vivid signal. There they point to Dante’s Seventh Layer Of Hell, where acts of violence in life are punished in death through endless torture and agony. Souls are immersed in rivers of boiling blood and fire, imprisoned in gnarled trees where harpies feed, and abandoned on scorching plains.

Darkness Everywhere take us to this hot and unhappy place through the paths of seven tracks, each of which has a fittingly hellish theme, and we’ll lead you through each of them ion our premiere of the EP today in advance of its release on February 25th. Continue reading »