FADING AEON: “THE VOICES WITHIN”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 152022
 

 

(This is DGR‘s review of the new second album by the German melodic death metal band Fading Aeon, which was released last December.)

Many, many, many moons ago in a long forgotten time I reviewed the debut release by German prog-melodeath act Fading Aeon. The group’s first release was a solid hybrid of the mass of genres that melodeath has become over the years, including pulling in influences from folk metal bands to the more long-form and journey-minded groups like Be’Lakor.

Debut releases hold a lot of potential and Fading Aeon’s A Warrior’s Tale was one style of ‘promising’ release, with much of it feeling like it was the group laying a foundation for things to come. While they had already solidified in a sound for that release, it still hinted that the group had more ideas toying with them than what had initially been put down. Where the group would head in their followup was an interesting prospect at the very least, so while it may have landed in a quieter time of the year in the opening weeks of December 2021, Fading Aeon saw fit to act upon that with their sophomore album The Voices Within. Continue reading »

PERSEFONE: “METANOIA”

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Feb 092022
 

 

(This is DGR‘s review of the new album by the Andorran extreme progressive metal band Persefone, which was released on February 4th by Napalm Records.)

We’ve been following the progressive metal group Persefone for a very long time now. If you’re curious just how long, we dedicated time for both a Synn Report and a review of their album Aathma, which has resulted in us covering nearly everything the band have done up to this point.

There’s been almost a five-year gap between Aathma and the group’s newest release Metanoia, which hit last Friday via Napalm Records, yet it seems as if there’s been no time at all between them; Metanoia picks up right where Aathma let off, which was itself an album that continued walking down the same path that 2013’s Spiritual Migration took. That specific path, in a roundabout way, brings us back to Metanoia. Continue reading »

A DOOMED TRIO: INFIRMUM, EVADNE, EIRÐ

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 072022
 

 

(We present a trio of album or EP reviews by DGR, delving into music of the doomed variety.)

One of the more reliable things about heavy metal outside of a yearly re-issue of Death‘s catalogue is that the end of year turnover/beginning of another is where a lot of doom releases like to insert themselves into the fray. It’s not surprising, given that it’s the cold season for sections of the world. With everything being painted as if it were covered in snow anyway, it makes sense that one of metal’s more melancholy genres steals a bit of the limelight.

Also not surprising, then, that the early part of my year was weirdly doom-dominated and not just by the three present in this write up but also with Author & Punishers Kruller hovering just outside the ring as well. I’m not the doom guy at the site – more often comfortable in my realms of death and grind – but that doesn’t mean I’ll make the genre draw the short straw all the time when it comes to focus. I just think there are people here that are way better at covering this style than I am.

You’ll note though that with these three, not all of them are from 2022 proper. Even though we’re making a valiant attempt to keep looking forward we still find ourselves ocassionally dragging ourselves back to the previous year with some of our discoveries. In this case it’s because one album came out on December 24th, 2021, and another is an EP containing three songs, two of which were singles released throughout the previous year. The third comes as a random stumbling while on break at work and may be one of the deeper journeys I’ve made into the ambient funeral-doom worlds that I’ve done in some time, especially since the last two that come to mind for me are Texas’ The Howling Void and Italy’s Void Of Silence. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ABYSMAL DAWN — “NIGHTMARE FRONTIER”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 012022
 

 

(On February 4th Season of Mist will release a new EP by Abysmal Dawn, and today we present DGR‘s review of the record, accompanied by a full stream that premiered today.)

Nightmare Frontier, the newest release from death metal crew Abysmal Dawn via Season of Mist, is an odd duck. Like many single releases that have been expanded into smaller EPs over the past few years as groups dig through their archives for value add-ons, Nightmare Frontier is a thematic grab bag that, thanks to its second song, makes a wide journey across the band’s career.

Containing one new song in the form of “A Nightmare Slain”, Nightmare Frontier then reinforces its first track with a new take on one of the group’s earliest songs, “Blacken The Sky”, and then further adds to it with two covers from surprising corners for the band with “Behind Space” and “Bewitched” – one interesting choice and one massively iconic song – for a total of a little over nineteen minutes worth of music.

Now granted, were this release just the single and the badass cover art by Pär Olofsson, you’d have a solid recommendation off the bat. But the other fifteen some-odd minutes of music make this one an oddball journey at the least. Continue reading »

DGR’S 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY REMEMBRANCE

 Listmania  4 Responses »
Jan 052022
 

 

(Not long ago DGR passed the 10th anniversary of his writing for NCS, and in this essay he commemorates the milestone as only he would decide to do.)

With 2021 now fully acknowledged as having never existed and the realization that we are settling in for the second repeat of the year 2020 slowly dawning on the world, it’s time for all of the old machinery that keeps this site running from day-to-day to knock the rust off and get back into proper form.

The first writings of a new year – stop me if you’ve heard this before – are always a little difficult. Some of us may never stop in order to keep the gears turning but there are times where it is nice to take a break, remind yourself that you love doing this, and in general get away from the grind. Listmania season has always been a good one for me to do that because it also means I have a near-endless series of posts to go through and hit the ‘play’ button on, whirlwind-touring through the world of heavy metal and also taking advantage of the opportunity not to have to review much in order to go through some weird musical blind spots and rabbit holes. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: THE DGR YEAR-END EXTRAVAGANZA: 10-1

 LISTMANIA 2021  6 Responses »
Dec 242021
 

 

(We reach the concluding segment of DGR‘s 2021 year-end list with his picks for the year’s Top 10 metal releases.)

Usually I will muse at the end of this list how it seems to get easier and easier as I go along, as I rediscover just how much I loved each release on here. By the time I hit the final ten records I’m basically tumbling over myself in effusive praise to try and get people to like what I like. That’s still the case here but 2021 still held some interesting susprises for me. While it generally felt like much of the year existed in a weird musical brainfog, once I finally hammered everything down into a numbered list I think my year was as varied as I could get… except for these final ten, which are basically just me lining up to get run over by a bus again and again.

Not only that but I even found myself breaking one of my usual rules, which is to not let the ‘shiny because its recent’ effect work on me with the year-end list. There’s a healthy chunk here that saw release in the back half of the year. This would normally bother me but not this time, because all heck, did we have a great run of music mudslide over us in the last few months of the year. It became real hard to hold onto that promise to myself, and at the end I finally caved, although I think you’ll agree that when you hear and see which ones managed to get through that jello-clad wall that is my personal restraint, they were pretty good picks.

Let’s get this mess on the road before I make myself look stupider than you already think I am. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: THE DGR YEAR-END EXTRAVAGANZA: 20-11

 LISTMANIA 2021  3 Responses »
Dec 232021
 

 

(Today we present Part Four of the week-long rollout of DGR‘s year-end list, with a segment that includes his countdown from 20 through 11.)

I’ve joked about it before but I believe this may be the first time I’ve actually pulled it off. We’ve danced around the fringes of it before but if we’ve timed this just right as a website, we may in fact be releasing my year-end list in time to ruin the holidays. If so, this one should be getting up there with tomorrow’s final entries smashing right into the holiday weekend. If that is the case then Hello, how are you?

I’m more than happy to help supply you with a multi-entry playlist of music to blast incredibly loudly and hopefully terrify both your neighbors and family in equal measure. You could even consider some of this the anti-holiday music list, because this is the one where things start to get increasingly abrasive. If it hasn’t become clear, it’s probably the part of the list I’ve had on max volume at work in order to drown out whatever the muzak is playing. I’ve heard it’s my coworkers new favorite game: “Is he doing construction over there or is that what he’s listening to?”

As with any installment of my year-end lists, this is the part that gets increasingly tech-death. Every couple of years I wind up with a gigantic block of entries from that genre and this has been an especially fruitful year. If you enjoy some instrumental pyrotechnics and musical wonder-working then there’s a damned good chunk of music in this block here for you. Everything else darts between weird and abrasive… so pretty par for the DGR course. Let us sally forth and crash headlong into tomorrow! Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: THE DGR YEAR-END EXTRAVAGANZA: 40-31

 LISTMANIA 2021  8 Responses »
Dec 212021
 

 

(Today we present Part Two of the week-long rollout of DGR‘s year-end list, with a segment that includes his picks from 40 through 31.)

I didn’t begin yesterday’s tour through 2021 with a traditional overview of the year as a whole, outside of acknowledging how time was starting to feel like it had no meaning and large chunks of the year were starting to blur together. I think I wound up using the album reviews tab of our own website as a way to keep track of what had been happening more than I have any other year.

2021 was an interesting year when attempting to look back at it because it seemed to move in fits and starts. The early part still had the whole world on hold, and some of the best releases that hit this year came out during that time, but they were from new and unexpected names. That is always exciting for a group like us, because we love getting new names out there. We’re also suckers for some of the more popular and well-known names but it has always felt good being able to share newer or more underground projects with people, so the bands can see some sort of positive response and continue to make music.

What I didn’t expected was how kindly the year would be to the deathcore and tech-death scenes, as both genres had long since hit a saturation point. Both of those had some murderous releases this year – one or two of which already appeared in the first segment of this list yesterday – and the way the more traditionally rigid genre lines for other styles continued to blur was also interesting to watch. Today’s chunk of picks is going to reflect a lot of all this in microcosm. You’ll see well-known names, newer discoveries from earlier in the year, and the previously mentioned thriving genres all gathered around this year’s funeral pyre. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: THE DGR YEAR-END LIST EXTRAVAGANZA: 50-41

 LISTMANIA 2021  4 Responses »
Dec 202021
 

 

(Today we begin the week-long rollout of DGR‘s year-end list with Part One, encompassing his picks from 50 through 41.)

When I started this list I had 65 albums and EPs that I had set aside to construct my year end list out of. I’m not saying this to brag about how much music I’m able to digest throughout the year, because in the face of some of our other writers around here it’s pretty clear that I’m not anywhere close to being able to do that. I say this because in all honesty I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to do my usual ridiculous top fifty this year.

For a large chunk of it I couldn’t even remember what had come out. Nothing was sticking – save for the few I had written down in my ongoing text file that morphs into this list – and more often that not it felt like there was a haze hovering over much of 2021, as if we were still trapped within the confines of 2020 and that year had just never ended.

With so many bands unable to tour or even play shows, and those that were brave enough to do so often cancelling multiple dates when the inevitable COVID-positive test would happen, it seemed like now was the time for any sort of EP/Single release they could pull off. In that case many bands even went year-over-year with releases, so there are some names here in very similar spots where you might find yourself saying, ‘But we saw that last year too!’. Don’t worry, I thought the same thing.

Taking this list down from 65 – which I reiterate is an incredible number of releases that I would be deeming worthy – to 50 was surprisingly difficult. So much so that it was tempting to do the usual ‘on the fence’ section of the list, and I just may as I get deeper in, but it also may be tempting to do a segment on some of the more notable absences in this year-end list. We’ll see where the winds take us. It may also be that my fingers will have cramped up by then.

Preamble out of the way, let’s begin our tour through what may have in fact been the year 2021, no matter what my brain seems to think. Continue reading »

VOICES: “BREAKING THE TRAUMA BOND”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Dec 072021
 

 

(This is DGR‘s review of the new album by Voices, which was released in late November by Church Road Records.)

I don’t think I was prepared for what transpired within the bounds of the hour-plus of the latest Voices album, Breaking The Trauma Bond. Now there will definitely be a few of you who smirk and go, ‘well, Voices being weird is modus operandi for them,’ and there is definite truth to that statement. Voices are a band  I show to people not because I fully enjoy everything they do but because when the band wrap their minds around a concept – especially since 2014’s London – they somehow manage to make some of the most fascinating and equally abrasive music out there.

The band have a core of death metal and black metal running through them but every release since 2013’s From The Human Forest We Create A Fugue Of Imaginary Rain has been so starkly different from the others that they’re a hard band to pin down, especially since they paint themselves as being sophisticated and avant-garde artistes. However, not even the early single release of An Audience Of Mannequins earlier in the year fully covers what happens within Breaking The Trauma Bond, because the two songs on that single may be the only two traditionally ‘heavy’ songs on this release. Even for Voices, Breaking The Trauma Bond is a fuckin’ weird disc. Continue reading »

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