ANTIGAMA: “WHITEOUT”

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Jul 192022
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of a new album by the Polish band Antigama. It was released a few days ago by Selfmadegod Records.)

When discussing Poland’s Antigama one of the chief genre-descriptors applied to the band is grindcore. Antigama‘s songwriting style, ethos, and general blast-fueled approach are fully within that world, but beyond that people get more abstract because the term grind doesn’t fully fit them as well as it should.

There’s more to Antigama than that, and it’s where you’ll often see ideas like “futuristic” and “cybergrind” thrown around, due in large part to Antigama‘s chaotic musical nature. At first pass through any Antigama release it does sound like the group are caught in the midst of an instrumental hurricane, and it’s only afterward when you realize that much of what the band are doing is calculated and controlled.

Not only that, but it also sounds much clearer than most other bands in their genre-sphere. There’s a sharp and angular technicality to Antigama‘s style that is hard to replicate with a production style so clear that it’s scientifically sterile. Whereas many bands bury themselves in reverb, distortion and general noise, everything Antigama have done has been to justify all of that being there – not just something to add to the general atmosphere. Which is why the group’s newest release Whiteout – abstracted artwork and all – is exciting, because even though it’s been five years since the group’s last EP and seven since the last full-length, it is made very clear early on that the group still have complete control of the chaotic maelstrom of sound within. Continue reading »

SAKIS TOLIS: “AMONG THE FIRES OF HELL”

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Jul 132022
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the first solo album by Sakis Tolis from Rotting Christ, which was released this past spring.)

Sakis Tolis is one of the more prolific music creators out there. The Rotting Christ name remains relevant in press cycles because the band always seem to have some sort of new song or project going on, and considering that the main two behind Rotting Christ are the Tolis-crew it wouldn’t be hard to say that a lot of that is because the band is a creative avenue for him. It hasn’t even been too much of a stretch for the lines to blur between the projects Sakis has been involved in, such that Rotting Christ have been known to break out a cover or two of songs by Thou Art Lord over the years.

This is the reason the March release of Sakis Tolis‘ solo album Among The Fires Of Hell so interesting, since the body of work that he’s responsible for is so vast already. Within seconds of starting up the album – if you weren’t aware already – it becomes clear who has been mostly responsible for a lot of the writing within Rotting Christ over the years. Among The Fires Of Hell is surprising even, because it creates a weird situation where the question that winds up being asked is that, for a musician with as vast a body of work as his, is there really so much left to say that it requires a full solo release? Continue reading »

EXOCRINE: “THE HYBRID SUNS”

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Jun 082022
 

(On June 17th Unique Leader Records will unleash a new album by the French technical death metal band Exocrine, and in advance of that we present DGR‘s extensive review.)

French tech-death group Exocrine‘s 2020 release Maelstrom landed pretty hard with me here at the site. Up to that point the group’s albums had always been a particular highlight of the given year of their release but Maelstrom really felt like the stars aligning for them. Their combination of head-spinning songwriting and sheer musical heft mixed well with the group’s experimentation throughout the album with varying synth lines, clean backing vocals, occasional brass and trumpet section solos for scene-setting, and atmospheric works, which oftentimes was more excessive than necessary.

It all worked for Maelstrom though, and made that album into an adventure, more than just the latest headspinner from a group known for making headspinners. Once you reached “Wall Of Water” on that album, you’d essentially reached the top of the roller-coaster and were now ready to accelerate downhill into whatever Exocrine had in store for you. That’s why the announcement of the group’s newest album, The Hybrid Suns – nearly two years later – was an exciting one. Continue reading »

SOREPTION: “JORD”

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Jun 062022
 

 

(We present DGR‘s review of Jord, the new album by the Swedish death metal band Soreption that’s due out on June 10th via Unique Leader.)

If current trends hold true then in about eight years from now Soreption will be releasing a new album – their second removed from their upcoming, for six total full lengths – and there will be one member left in that band and that person will be me.

It’s strange, considering how I’m not currently a member of the group nor do I – competently – play any instrument, but there has to be some strange magic happening, that for the last few releases Soreption have somehow slimmed down their lineup every time and yet every four years have managed to put out an album. Not only that, but an album of eight songs and about thirty to thirty-five minutes worth of music. Every time.

Clearly, the machine-like nature of the band’s music extends beyond just the Swedes’ songwriting ability and has become part of the overall band operating procedure. That’s how we land at an album like Soreption‘s upcoming Jord, a release that maintains the band’s core as a three-piece and pulls out all the stops in regards to guitarist appearances for one of the most clock-work mechanical riff avalanche style Soreption albums out there. Continue reading »

BLOODHUNTER: “KNOWLEDGE WAS THE PRICE”

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Jun 022022
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new album by the Spanish metal band Bloodhunter, which was released on May 27th by Maldito Records.)

It would’ve been fully understandable if Bloodhunter had chosen to rest on their laurels for their third album Knowledge Was The Price. After a nearly five-year gap and some lineup shifting since their previous release, 2017’s The End Of Faith, the band would’ve been fully justified in playing it safe. They already have a rock-solid – and recognizable – formula in place that works pretty well for them, and yet on the group’s newest release  Bloodhunter don’t quite play into that.

They wrote a ton of music – Knowledge Was The Price is a weighty beast musically – over the timespan between their two albums, but it’s so surprisingly varied that they never fully settle into the bog-standard galloping guitar riff with mighty shriek on the vocal-front style of song. It wouldn’t be such a common trope if it didn’t work so well, which is why Knowledge Was The Price is an unexpectedly interesting album, because for as much as the band do play close enough to that fire and bend it to their will, they also try to differentiate themselves a lot from it. It’s an acrobatic listening experience for sure and one that will be intriguing to gauge people’s excitement for, since each release for them feels like their biggest yet. and it’s highly likely Knowledge Was The Price will once again be placing them in front of a bunch of new people. Continue reading »

SEPTICFLESH: “MODERN PRIMITIVE”

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May 312022
 

 

(We present DGR‘s review of the latest album by SepticFlesh, which was released by Nuclear Blast earlier this month.)

Modern Primitive, the eleventh release from Greek symphonic death metal group SepticFlesh, was quietly waiting to strike just out of our visual periphery. It’s a big, lumbering beast of an album that was patiently waiting for its moment of impact, and like many SepticFlesh releases there’s a lot to unpack here.

Now firmly ensconced in their specific style of symphonic death metal, SepticFlesh have become a band that moves in iterations. They have a solid and recognizable through-line in their music and one that has largely remained unchanged since the early-aughts – the general big, booming void of a SepticFlesh song is hard to mistake for anyone else.

What has become the story of each SepticFlesh album is just how far the band will drift from that line on each album, just how much they will go symphonic or just how death metal the band will be, with each release becoming a differing ratio of each. Continue reading »

DEMONICAL: “MASS DESTROYER”

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May 302022
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new album by the Swedish death metal band Demonical, released earlier this month by Agonia Records.)

Demonical operate like clockwork. They’re one of the least presumptuous bands out there, playing a style of music that requires very little pretense to understand from the get-go. You know what you’re in for with a Demonical album by this point and they’ve stuck rigidly to that formula for some time.

They’ll have eight songs for you, weighing in at a little over half an hour, and the cover art will likely be of the same school of the last few releases from them. Mass Destroyer is the group’s second release with the current lineup; one that saw some minor shifting right around the time bassist Martin Schulman‘s other project Centinex went through lineup changes as well, but you’ll recognize Mass Destroyer as a Demonical release quickly. Continue reading »

GHOST OF MIRACH: “SOL REGEM”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 292022
 

 

(This is DGR‘s review of the debut EP by the Dutch death metal band Ghost of Mirach, which was released in April 2022.)

Taken at face value Ghost Of Mirach‘s debut EP Sol Regem is a weird fucking entity. There is no groundwork laid and no explanation provided within the songs of what exactly is happening here. The group just launch you right into the deep end and from there you either pick up what’s happening or it whips right past you, given that Sol Regem is only twenty minutes long.

However, given this website’s tendencies to pull bands from nowhere and place them in front of you, at the very least we should explain what the hell the Ghost Of Mirach project is. Continue reading »

DEMIRICOUS: — “III: CHAOTIC LETHAL”

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May 272022
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the latest album by the Indiana metal extremists Demiricous, which was released a couple weeks ago by Post. Recordings.)

What a wild world we live in when there’s a third Demiricous album out. The group were something of a fixture of the underground in the early-to-mid 2000s, with a combination of relentless touring and albums that skirted around on the death-thrash line/full-blown Slayer worship at a relentless pace.

The band put out two albums and then activity would become increasingly sporadic from about 2010 on. Outside of a demo release, Demiricous even went into full-hibernation mode for a while, which was a bummer for those who saw promise in both the Hellbound and Poverty releases.

However, once you’ve reached the ‘fifteen years between releases’ statistic, that is when you have people going ‘what a world we live in’, because it wasn’t that long ago that Demiricous released their third album Chaotic Lethal. Continue reading »

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