Jun 292025
 

(written by Islander)

Between signing off on yesterday’s roundup and starting this one, various events conspired to prevent me from making this one as substantial as yesterday’s. One of them involved a surfeit of gin, another a forgetfulness about something I agreed to do today with my spouse; possibly the two are connected.

A rash of new musical discoveries over the last 24 hours was also a contributing factor. They complicated the making of choices at a time when time has become short.

Well, enough about all that, I’d better get started or this collection will turn out to be even briefer than brief. Be forewarned: Nothing in here today resembles conventional black metal, or even black metal at all in some cases. Continue reading »

Feb 062023
 

 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Ohio-based Sanguisugabogg, released on February 3rd by Century Media Records.)

Normally this brand of death metal is not my thing. Early Cannibal Corpse was once my go-to for this kind of thing, which these days often gets labeled as gore-grind. These guys are clearly tired of being tied to such labels, and aside from the low guttural vocals, they have set themselves apart from being another spawn of Cannibal Corpse’s mutilated womb with their fetish for grooves. There is a pungent whiff of hardcore to some of their riffs, which have the breakdown feel.

Normally when it comes to a band that knocks my headphones back due to the sheer density of their sound, my first concern becomes, can they write songs? The first two here earned a thumbs up in this department. Thus the challenge for a band who lives off brutality for the sake of brutality was to keep interest. Which they did with their evershifting flow of groove-drenched riffs. Continue reading »