SHOW REVIEW: SEPULTURA, DESTRUCTION, ARSIS, BORIS THE BLADE, MICAWBER

 Concert Reviews  9 Responses »
Jun 012015
 

 

(In this post our man DGR reviews a Sacramento performance by Sepultura, Destruction, Arsis, Boris the Blade, and Micawber.)

Two shows in two days can sometimes be a difficult prospect, especially when you’re used to working those evenings. When you’ve barely recovered from one, dragging yourself to another can feel like a herculean labor. You don’t have the ‘holy shit I’m here’ adrenaline of being at a festival, it’s just two separate events on two different days, and as it would turn out, on two fairly different scales.

The previous night before this show, I wind up seeing Anaal Nathrakh in a venue the size of a fairly large kitchen (that show reviewed here), and this time I was slated to see Sepultura at Ace Of Spades — a venue that I have lavished many loving words over, mostly in hopes that they keep booking metal shows because they have a knack for bringing bands that normally wouldn’t roll through to Sacramento. Of course, you have to keep in mind that this show was a fairly large cultural icon at this point, with both Sepultura and Destruction being long-running international bands at about thirty years a piece. Hell, this was a Sepultura thirty-year anniversary tour, all things considered. (While we’re on the subject, Boris The Blade turned out to be from Australia, meaning this was quite the international tour.) Continue reading »

DISARMONIA MUNDI: “COLD INFERNO”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
May 282015
 

 

(DGR reviews the new album by Disarmonia Mundi.)

It’s likely that this horse has been beaten to death so much that the goo on the ground is hardly recognizable as a biomass — but it remains true that a six-year gap is a long time to wait between discs. The situation is more common than people think, and some bands will make you wait far, far longer — although by a certain point it’s pretty clear that a group is on “hiatus”. Disarmonia Mundi has provided one of the few times when I’ve personally gotten to be part of the esteemed club of fans desperate for any word.

The two-piece that is the core of Disarmonia Mundi have certainly kept busy, with a whole array of projects that cover the whole spectrum of metal — production work and otherwise, including the Princess Ghibli project and The Stranded. However, even though The Stranded veered far closer to Disarmonia Mundi’s brand of melodeath than likely even its members intended, it’s still not Disarmonia Mundi proper, still not the band that gave us one of my personal favorite melodeath albums of the last decade with 2009’s ugly-artwork-bearing hook-machine that was The Isolation Game.

Cold Inferno, the group’s soon-to-be-released new album, has a lot to live up to and already marks a bit of a shift from the previous disc with a track list slimmed down to ten. Cold Inferno’s appearance may have seemed sudden but this is a disc that has been cooking for a while. Was the time worth it though? Can Disarmonia Mundi prove themselves to still be a melodeath powerhouse already halfway through another decade? Have I jokingly made light of the fact that I’ve been waiting six years for this album? Continue reading »

SIFTING: DISARMONIA MUNDI, MAJALIS, AUTHOR & PUNISHER, SIBERIAN HELL SOUNDS / TRAVELS SPLIT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 272015
 

 

(DGR wrote this round-up of new music while I was away at MDF, and I rewarded his helpfulness by posting it days later after I got back home. You’re welcome, Dave.)

While most of the goofballs who inhabit this site are off fucking around somewhere in Maryland, one of us has to pick up the slack and bring you yesterday’s news tomorrow, otherwise we wouldn’t be fulfilling our mission statement of always being just behind the curve — but with more words to make up for the delay.

This edition is going to be a little heavily biased toward my tastes, which means we’re probably going to be on the lighter fare of the metal scale, but there was still some damn good music to happen within recent weeks, and most of the bands you folks will be familiar with. There were a couple of interesting discoveries on that front, as a couple of different artists decided to release new songs out to the world, and then in the other two cases, they’ve been out for a bit but we’re doing our best to keep them from flying under the radar. Continue reading »

SHOW REVIEW: ANAAL NATHRAKH, INCITE, SECRETS OF THE SKY, PLAGUE WIDOW

 Concert Reviews  5 Responses »
May 262015
 

 

(DGR prepared this review of a show in Sacramento, California on May 11, 2015.)

I’ve often joked about my living in Sacramento as being an unfortunate situation and something of a curse. Sacramento, which could easily be described as a pretend big city and the world’s largest cow town, often within the same breath, is a city that up until the past three years or so would rarely get many touring acts rolling through town. Most of the time, those tours would hit the big cities (you know, the ones they actually care enough to include on a map of California because stuff happens there, unlike us, who get preferential treatment because we are the capitol) and then quickly jet away from the desolate wastelands of this state.

The local scene has always been vibrant but even now, with a whole bunch of venues in town and multiple concerts that likely would have NEVER rolled through before those venues came to Sacramento, I still find myself surprised. Sometimes, the stars align and we even manage to pull off something incredibly insane — like Anaal Nathrakh coming to podunk-ass Sacramento and playing in a venue the size of a large kitchen. Continue reading »

ANTIGAMA: “THE INSOLENT”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 152015
 

 

(DGR reviews the new album by Poland’s Antigama.)

Antigama’s Meteor was one of those albums that felt like a band finally getting a bit of much-needed spotlight. The Polish grind band, whose music strayed heavily into industrial realms while sticking mainly to the core four instruments that make up any group, hit a disc out of the ballpark with Meteor, and it served as an effective closer to the band’s time on Relapse — one that had seen the releases of Resonance, Warning, and Meteor. In their long career Antigama have spent time on different labels and now find themselves returning to Selfmadegod — who had previously handled the group’s disc Zeroland — for their seventh full-length album release with early May’s The Insolent.

The Insolent continues the band’s slow drift into cybergrind territory, one that sees them not so much playing their instruments as fully desecrating them — with chord changes that sound like the performers’ hands had to be physically yanked across the guitar by the speed at which they happen and are so jarring that people familiar with Meteor should be right at home. The Insolent is high-minded viciousness, an album that hints at a bunch of different things happening under the surface but on top is like three trains all destined for collision — and a huge chunk of The Insolent is that moment of impact. Continue reading »

THE RESISTANCE: “TORTURE TACTICS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 212015
 

 

(DGR reviews the new EP by The Resistance.)

Torture Tactics is a weird release. The release itself isn’t weird, but as a whole Torture Tactics is an odd duck amongst EP releases. More on that in a second, as some folks may need some quick catching up.

Torture Tactics is the new EP by Gothenburg, Sweden-based melodeath supergroup The Resistance. If you’ve never crossed paths with The Resistance before, their members have quite the histories in other bands and somehow found their ways into one congealed group, constructed out of some fairly big names to make some pretty straightforward and punishing thrash and death.

For instance, in my case, The Resistance were a way to keep track of the Dimension Zero gentlemen, as both guitarists Jesper Strömblad — yes, he of ex-In Flames fame — and Glenn Ljungström have spent time within their ranks. Also on the roster, in terms of slightly more recognizable names, is Marco Aro, current vocalist for The Haunted — although at the time of The Resistance’s inception he hadn’t stepped back into that role yet. Continue reading »

CARACH ANGREN: “THIS IS NO FAIRYTALE”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Apr 162015
 

 

(DGR reviews the latest album by the Dutch band Carach Angren., which is out now on Season of Mist.)

One of the things I love about Carach Angren is how divisive they are amongst the staff at this site. For some, they’re “LARP-Friendly black metal” and for others they’re an enjoyable band. When it comes to a genre like symphonic black, I own up to it time and time again that I am, in large part, an idiot.

I scratch the surface of the genre but it has been a huge blind spot for me, as has black metal as a whole; when it comes to the great divide of metal, between the black metal and the death metal guys, I tend to fall on the death metal side of the spectrum. I like my fair share of death metal bands masquerading as black metal groups, but rarely the traditional, ethereal, and anguish-fueled howls or the purposefully roughly-produced walls of sound of the early generations of proper black metal — which roughly translates to me being perfectly OK with Carach Angren and their symphonic horror tomes.

I think a large part of this is how you see the band. For me, Carach Angren are a group of storytellers who happen to really love their camp. They’ve never been the most black metal thing out there, and frankly, their stories have never been the most traditionally black metal out there, having covered a battlefield or two and even doing a nautical-themed disc, though the latter has become a bit more common and has been done increasingly well by other bands. The only thing you can be sure of is that the body count on a Carach Angren disc is probably going to be high and no one is going to escape happily. I’ve never had a thought of , “Well, this oughta end just swell for this character!”, when listening to a Carach Angren album, instead just counting down the minutes until their inevitable end. Continue reading »

NIGHTRAGE: “THE PURITAN”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 142015
 

 

(DGR wrote this review of the new album by Nightrage.)

Nightrage are a band who seem to exist by force of will. They have gone through numerous lineup changes and, across their discography, a whole smattering of frontmen have appeared, many of whom are names within the realm of melodeath. Since 2011’s underrated Insidious, an album that is easily one of their best and pretty much the spiritual sequel to earlier release Sweet Vengeance (including cameos by the same musicians who appeared on that album), Nightrage have once again found themselves in flux — with members leaving and then slowly being replaced. In the end, Nightrage have become a much smaller group than they were before, with founding guitarist Marios Iliopoulos and bassist Anders Hammer being the remaining constants. They are joined by new vocalist Ronnie Nyman to complete the three-piece that is the current incarnation of Nightrage.

Needless to say, four years is a long time for a band to be out of the limelight, and their new album The Puritan is itself a slimmer beast, one with sleeker and more to-the- point songs that reflect Nightrage’s new, slimmer line-up. It also shows that despite their ever-in-flux membership, Nightrage are still damned good at hitting a melodeath fan right in the pleasure centers of the brain. Continue reading »

SIFTING (Part 2): HELLUCINATION, THROWN TO THE SUN

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 032015
 

 

(This is Part 2 of a collection of five new reviews by DGR. The first three reviews are collected here. For those who missed Part 1, DGR’s introduction is repeated below.)

I’ve written a few articles where I’ve had to sort of slide back from the desk my laptop sits on, sigh, and go, “Well, that got completely out of control”. There’s something to be said about being punctual with your writing, but what initially began as a sort of archive of two real quick discoveries of stuff from 2014 that I had just found via Bandcamp became this massive and stupid roundup of five bands, with 2014 bookending a huge block of shit from 2015; so, uh, I guess fans of symmetry should really dig into this collection of sounds.

A huge chunk of this is still as originally penned, dedicated to stuff I found recently that hit last year, as I sifted from various sites I visited while trying to find stuff that might perk your ears. But I just kept finding music that seemed to be hitting right as I would type up the last little paragraph for an earlier release. Some were sent to us by bands themselves, and others I came across after a piece of album art or a random show poster caught my eye. Much of this article is death-metal-focused and much of it very cleanly produced and melodeath-leaning. However, there are a few curveballs this time around, and those are the ones that really caught my attention this time.

Hellucination

This band right here is one of the reasons this article got out of control. Yet, Hellucination are one that I felt I had to include because I was listening to their new album a lot for a fairly recent discovery. This one is a late addition that kind of forced its way into the group after I spotted its album art popping up on the social media pages of a couple of musicians I was checking in with. Continue reading »

SIFTING (Part 1): BLIND SPITE, MANIFEST, THE RAGNAROK PROPHECY

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 022015
 

 

(DGR provides this collection of reviews of new releases by five bands. The first three reviews are collected here, and Part 2 will follow tomorrow.)

I’ve written a few articles where I’ve had to sort of slide back from the desk my laptop sits on, sigh, and go, “Well, that got completely out of control”. There’s something to be said about being punctual with your writing, but what initially began as a sort of archive of two real quick discoveries of stuff from 2014 that I had just found via Bandcamp became this massive and stupid roundup of five bands, with 2014 bookending a huge block of shit from 2015; so, uh, I guess fans of symmetry should really dig into this collection of sounds.

A huge chunk of this is still as originally penned, dedicated to stuff I found recently that hit last year, as I sifted from various sites I visited while trying to find stuff that might perk your ears. But I just kept finding music that seemed to be hitting right as I would type up the last little paragraph for an earlier release. Some were sent to us by bands themselves, and others I came across after a piece of album art or a random show poster caught my eye. Much of this article is death-metal-focused and much of it very cleanly produced and melodeath-leaning. However, there are a few curveballs this time around, and those are the ones that really caught my attention this time.

Blind Spite

One of the fun things about just combing through Bandcamp and various other sites is the forehead-slapping discovery of releases that hit last year and flew completely under the radar. This one in particular hit in September of 2014, and yet it is one that deserves to get out there. We usually try to be on the somewhat forefront when it comes to new releases, but a late discovery is easily excused when we get to share it out there for all of you folk. Continue reading »

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