WHITE STONES: “KUARAHY”

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Nov 022020
 

 

(This is the fourth installment in a seven-album review orgy by our man DGR, who is attempting to free his mind for year-end season by clearing away a backlog of write-ups for albums he has enjoyed in 2020. We’ve been running these on consecutive days — except we missed Friday — and today’s subject is a debut album released last spring via Nuclear Blast by the Spanish band White Stones.)

The March 13, 2020 album Kuarahy by the band White Stones is such a fascinating release for a number of reasons. This far out from its release, it’s been interesting to see how things have played out for the group’s debut release via Nuclear Blast. On the homefront, we covered the music videos in the lead-up to the debut of this project led by Martin Mendez (of Opeth bassist fame), but upon full release it kind of full off the site’s radar. We’ll rectify that here.

This is a record I’ve listened to a multitude of times since its release, and by the end of multiple listening sections and a seven-month writing delay it remains stubbornly ‘interesting’, in part because what keeps grabbing me seems to nebulous. Every time I think I have a hold on it, it wriggles away and moves just slightly out of vision again. It’s a bizarre creature that seems to exist permanently ‘elsewhere’, even though  at first glance it never seems to garner much more than ‘that’s some prog-death music alright’. Continue reading »

DEMONICAL: “WORLD DOMINATION”

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Oct 292020
 

 

(This is the third installment in a seven-album review orgy by our man DGR, who is attempting to free his mind for year-end season by clearing away a backlog of write-ups for albums he has enjoyed in 2020. Today’s subject is the newest album by the long-running Swedish death metal band Demonical, which was released on October 23rd by Agonia Records.)

Even though Demonical have been around for six albums and a swath of material in between, it’s been interesting to watch how the band have wound up unintentionally re-contextualized alongside bassist Martin Schulman‘s other works, like Centinex. The two groups share common DNA through Demonical’s initial founding around a core of former Centinex crew and the timing of their releases being so close to each other. It makes it seem as if the two are playing off of each other.

Whereas Centinex is rooted firmly in a classic Swede-death sound and all the rock-striking-boulder thump that is contained therein, Demonical are the other side of that death metal coin, a more modern-sounding project that sidles up perfectly alongside the distorted chainsaw riff and blasting drums of today. Both groups have also maintained very fluid lineups, with both gaining new vocalists in place of October Tide‘s multi-talented – and at one point very prolific – Alexander Högbom. Demonical have been a little more steady in comparison to Centinex’s full refresh, but the additions of Christofer Säterdal on vocals and returning drummer Ronnie Bergerstäl in the time between Chaos Manifesto and the group’s newest album World Domination has certainly kept things interesting. Continue reading »

INFERI: “OF SUNLESS REALMS”

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Oct 282020
 

 

(This is the second installment in a seven-album review orgy by our man DGR, who is attempting to free his mind for year-end season by clearing away a backlog of write-ups for albums he has spent a lot of time with in 2020. Today’s subject is a new EP by Inferi, released on October 9th.)

As a rule of thumb, releases by the Tennessee-based tech-death crew Inferi tend to be a lot of fun. They made their name in the whirling maelstrom of everything-and-the-kitchen-sink, pyroclastic-flow-of-notes style of hyperspeed tech-death. As much as anything, it’s a blast to see just how far Inferi are going to push each song before they fully disintigrate. While they’ve certainly become one of the groups whose music serves as a snapshot of a scene at the time of each release, there’s purely reptilian amusement to be found in seeing how much a band can shred within a single song.

Of Sunless Realms is the newest EP from the band, weighing in at a compact – for them – twenty-two minutes and five songs. Every previous time when covering a band of their ilk – including those their current label The Artisan Era likes to traffic in – it has always felt justified to warn people to gird themselves a bit for a massive journey ahead, simply because such bands really, really like to pack as much as they possibly can into every song. Surprisingly, Of Sunless Realms works in their favor simply because of its compact length – about as no bullshit as Inferi can get – with five songs that provide a tantalizing snapshot of where the band are now. Continue reading »

BLACK CROWN INITIATE: “VIOLENT PORTRAITS OF DOOMED ESCAPE”

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Oct 272020
 

 

(In this post DGR begins a sequence of seven reviews, which we will do our best to post on seven consecutive days, catching up with albums from earlier in the year that we didn’t fully cover. And to begin we have Black Crown Initiate‘s latest album, released in August by Century Media.)

We’re nearing the end of the year, which means you’ve inevitably seen the occasional author musing to themselves about starting to work on their year-end lists. In fact, I’ve already seen a couple of prospective ones myself, which isn’t weird at all considering it’s still March. But there’s always been something of a compulsion of mine where I feel like if I don’t cover everything I’ve listened to this year then I’m short-changing the bands, even if a disc may have hit way early on in the year, and as far as the internet is concerned may as well have been released in the Cretaceous period.

In some cases it’s fine because that means that there can be some half-hearted attempts at brevity in these write-ups, but man if it doesn’t feel a bit like panicking right before the end of the year, especially while keeping in mind there’s still a few handfuls of releases still heading towards us in the October/November months. I generally try to avoid bringing a personal “I” into the mix when writing for that reason, because honestly, few care about the personal adventures of some dork with a laptop on the west coast; in that way, I try to keep things focused on how the album may play out to the listener while keeping my own adventures fairly light throughout.

It doesn’t really work that way when you write like this though. Instead, it becomes incredibly personal due to just how candid the reviews wind up feeling. Imagine laying your arm across a desk and just sweeping everything off it and you’ll have a mental image of what doing one of these collections can feel like. It’s reckless as hell and shit goes flying everywhere, but wow, look at how clear that desk is now. It is surprisingly freeing.

Thus we make a run at clearing out much of the backlog, some releases I’m surprised haven’t gotten more coverage around here and others matters of curiosity. A few of these are later discoveries and others I’d guess fall squarely into the DGR corner of the NCS virtual office and nowhere else. It’s like a weight is being lifted off my shoulders already.

So long as we ignore the blank ‘potential year-ender list’ file that is currently parked dead center on my desktop. Continue reading »

CHOKE ME: “THE COUSIN OF DEATH”

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Oct 062020
 

 

(In this review DGR praises the new record by Los Angeles-based Choke Me, which was released in June by Riot Ready Records.)

Speaking of releases that have fallen firmly in the category of “have listened to a ton since its sliding across my proverbial desk”, L.A’s Choke Me and their album The Cousin Of Death – released  in late June via Riot Ready Records – is the latest candidate to build itself a very comfortable nest in that pile.

There’s a few reasons for this: One is that this disc is fast. The band dub themselves “fastcore”, so at the very least this should be an easily attainable goal, and The Cousin of Death clocks in at about twenty-five minutes over twelve songs. The second is that The Cousin Of Death is cathartic. It nails the feeling of lashing out within the first few songs and retains that sort of ferocity for the entirety of its run time, the dual vocal assault provided by its bassist and guitarist amplifying that effect.

Third, whether intentional or something that just popped up during the songwriting sessions, nearly every song here has some sort of flash point where the group shift from comfortable death and grind riffs into full on blasting hell, as if every song seeks to light itself on fire and be fully immolated by its ending. That moment where the tempo accelerates into full speed is so much fun that even though it happens over and over throughout The Cousin Of Death proves that Choke Me have really gripped on to something.

Finally, I have a soft spot for just about any release that contains as much bile within it as a song like “You Aren’t Special” does. Continue reading »

PIG DESTROYER: “THE OCTAGONAL STAIRWAY”

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Sep 302020
 


photo by Jay Dixon

 

(This is DGR’s review of the latest EP by Pig Destroyer, which is out now on Relapse Records.)

Honestly, before it was made clear what Pig Destroyer‘s latest EP The Octagonal Stairway was meant to be, there was the briefest of double-takes, as I could’ve sworn there was already an “Octagonal Stairway” single released way back in 2013. Eventual digging would prove that memory true, and it didn’t take much more to clarify what this EP was.

Pig Destroyer have made a name for themselves catching people off guard with some of their EP work, usually with grander aspirations than just a rocket-fueled grind assault. Their latest full-length Head Cage did the same thing but with giant mosh riffs and huge grooves instead of artistic exploration into other genres. That being the case, even with a name like Pig Destroyer it’s still fun to see what the band are going to hurl at you through your speakers.

In this case the EP is a newly approached version of its title song, a collection of two of their singles that came out in 2019 – one via Decibel flexi disc and another an Adult Swim singles release, much like the title track here – and then three electronic experiments that either resolve into sound or are otherwise meant to slowly crawl under the skin and unnerve you. If it feels to you as a listener like a release with multiple personalities fighting for some sense of identity, you wouldn’t be the only one in thinking so, but it is very convenient to finally have these songs under one roof if you weren’t able to find them otherwise. Continue reading »

WASTEWALKER: “LOWBORN”

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Sep 242020
 

 

(DGR finally got around to writing about the second album from fellow Sacramento denizens Wastewalker.)

There is a part of me that worried for a while that I was holding Wastewalker to a much higher standard than I would have for most groups, which may be why this review took so long to hammer out.

Wastewalker are something of a local Sacramento tech-death “supergroup” as far as the term could be stretched, comprising members who have been involved in some of the more interesting projects to come out of that region in the past few years. Born from of the ashes of the “too death metal for the core kids, too core for the death metal kids” Conducting From The Grave, guitarist John Abernathy found himself accompanied by a stellar roster of musicians.

Their drummer Justin has been in a small collective of projects – the highlight of which is the angular madness that is Journal – while bassist Joel Barrera has been holding down the rhythmic fort for a handful of promising death metal groups, the most recent of which (actually written about here) is the newly launched Katholik. Vocalist Cam Rogers comes shrieking in from an impressive first volley on Alterbeast’s first album, and guitarist Nate Graham was involved in a later lineup of that same group, while also recently joining the promising The Odious Construct.

It’s such a promising lineup that you couldn’t help but be excited for them, which is why it was so frustrating that even though it found a foothold here, only half of the group’s debut album Funeral Winds seemed to stick with me. The group’s sophomore disc Lowborn, released in May after a sizeable delay, is proving to be a far different story. Continue reading »

NIGHT CROWNED: “IMPIUS VIAM”

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Sep 212020
 

 

(Here’s DGR’s review of the new album by the Swedish band Night Crowned, which is out now via Noble Demon Records.)

Night Crowned‘s debut album Impius Viam came out in the tail end of February and it has felt like a musical mental roadblock on this end ever since. We were lucky in being able to cover the band’s premieres at this site and even got their drummer to sit down and talk with us for a bit, yet when the full album came out we never fully sat down to dedicate words to it. Yet it’s been in constant rotation here, an ugly sort of beast clawing at the back of the skull.

The group’s hybridizing of a collective of extreme metal genres — with a heavy ratio of melodic black metal dominating the recipe — seems to have spread like an infection, and in between the spinning of newer releases this year, there’s always that haunting voice in the back of the head with its incessant whisper “what if you gave that Night Crowned disc another listen?” Continue reading »

KUNSTZONE: “EXIT BABYLON”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 182020
 

 

(Kunstzone released a new album last week, and so, like clockwork, we of course have a review of it by DGR, who spares no words.)

I’ve often pitched the Kunstzone project around here as sounding like the results of an ongoing battle between Anaal Nathrakh and Fear Factory. Each disc successfully blurs the lines between the two, in differing ratios depending on how the duo of multi-instrumentalist Alex Rise and Khaozone artist Andy felt at that particular recording session.

Thus, with four discs and a scattering of remix EPs and singles lying in their collective wake, you have a project whose debut release Eschaton Discipline splits about 60/40 in favor of Nathrakh’s brand of madness, and the following releases The Art Of Making The Earth Uninhabitable and Solarborn splitting about 70/30 and 80/20 in that same general direction. Which brings us to the group’s newest album Exit Babylon, which saw release on September 11th of this year. Continue reading »

NAPALM DEATH: “THROES OF JOY IN THE JAWS OF DEFEATISM”

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Sep 152020
 

 

(Here’s DGR’s review of the eagerly anticipated new album by Napalm Death, which is set for release by Century Media on September 18th.)

Napalm Death have realized that they are one of those groups whose name and cultural brand makes it so they can do whatever the hell they want musically, and it’s been fun watching the group throw their weight around. The Napalm Death banner extends far beyond just music, as mentioning them raises the specter of grind as a whole genre, and so in one way or another the two have become inextricable. Yet as their career has proven, the band have long aimed past the idea of incredibly short musical tantrums and into realms both far heavier and more violent, and also worlds slower and much more atmospheric.

Apex Predator – Easy Meat was a good example of that sort of musical exploration. It existed like a condensed version of the band’s career and musical tastes in a head-on collision, resulting in a dense package that was all over the map musically but as heavy as a group with the name Napalm Death should be expected to make. Logic Ravaged By Brute Force, released earlier in the year, suggested something different. It contained both the punk-flavored title song and a noisier than hell Sonic Youth cover.

You could glean from that some sense of where the band might be aiming in the future, but their recent comments that they were really leaning in a noise-rock direction with their newest release Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism suggested that the album might be something very different for them. Which makes the release all the more fun because it is a very different exploration of music for the band. Continue reading »

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