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One of our greatest strengths as a species is our ability to learn. We (most of us, anyway) glean information from experience and apply any newfound knowledge toward future endeavors, shaping our lives with said wisdom. Fire hot? Keep hands away from that shit. Sun bright? Keep eyes away from that shit. Hinder bad? Keep ears away from that shit, problem solved. The possibilities rendered from experiential education are endless, allowing us to improve and expand our own existence. We learn what works, what doesn’t work, and how we can improve. Why tech-death insists on being an exercise in as many bands as possible doing the exact same thing as each other, is something that baffles. On that note, and with Beuller-approved levels of irony, let’s talk about some dudes from Dubai and what they’ve done with the genre on their third full-length, Past, Present… Torture.

Before we get too far down this rabbit hole, let me acknowledge that Nervecell are clearly an experienced group of musicians. Guitarist Barney Ribeiro handles the rhythm section capably, channeling Necrophagist and Nile, while Rami H. Mustafa handles Obscura-esque lead work, both wielding the tones and ‘tudes of their idols aptly. James Kazhaal invokes the growling fury of Nile as he damns the history and future of humanity, and points go to him for pulling it off with such clear enunciation. All of this familiar fare is gifted a percussive path by none other than guest double-bass abuser Kevin Foley (Abbath, Sepultura, Decapitated, and more), and it is always evident that the band has learned much from the giants of the genre.

The problem, however, is that everything works because it’s already worked before, for everybody else. When I say the guitarists are channeling their idols, I don’t mean that they communicate with the spirits to seek musical guidance. What I mean is that they wear the skin of Necrophagist for clothes, kneel at an altar of Nile’s discarded chewing gum and recite Abysmal Dawn lyrics into a mirror for hours in the dark. Nervecell have certainly learned what works within the chuggy, noodly cesspool of tech-death, but instead of diving deeper into the murk or else abandoning the waters entirely, Past, Present… Torture simply floats in the stagnant slime, opting to emulate rather than deviate. It’s not particularly explorative, it’s neither aggressively good nor bad, it’s just there.

The predictability begins with the legally required instrumental “Intro,” building an Eastern melody for two minutes longer than the album needed and threatening to mire it in the icky, schticky, gimmicky goo of Black Lake Niche-Songs. Thankfully this is never the case, since that’s apparently not the element of Nile that these guys wanted to rehash. The remaining 12 songs move more quickly than the 50 minute run-time might suggest, pounding their way down the middle of the road with the obligatory guttural “ooooohhh”’s, pinch harmonics, and shin-splinting drums that all tech-death albums require. Two more throwaway instrumentals find their way into the insipid onslaught, standing out in no way but admittedly aiding Past’s flow by providing breathers. Not much to talk about in the way of standout moments, here, as you’ll see everything coming from a mile off.

For the record, I don’t think this record sucks. “Treading Beneath” is a killer track imbued with the faintest of Eastern flavors, and “Proxy War” is just straight gangsta. These guys know exactly what they’re doing, and that’s what makes my damnation of Past so painful: none of it’s bad, but almost all of it’s boring, a well-executed reanimation of the ghosts of tech-death past. Sure, these guys can noodle and blast their way through an album like everyone else, but did they need to? This isn’t a debut or even the stereotypical sophomore slump, this is full-length #3, and I definitely expected more than this. Ultimately, Past, Present… Torture serves as an exercise in irony, reliving the glory days of tech-death yore without so much as a second thought toward innovation, and this particular dude cannot abide. Sure, it sounds killer, but it sounded just as good when bands A-Z² did the same thing. Somewhere, there is a dead horse beaten into an unrecognizable pulp, and we have Nervecell to blame.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Lifeforce Records
Websites: nervecell.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nervecell
Releases Worldwide: August 25th, 2017

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Don’t look at me. I feel nothing but shame for the treason I am about to unveil, for though my words are true, they are most certainly not trve. I’ve been banging my head to power metal all week… and I liked it. It started with this band, Gods of Silence, and their debut assault Neverland. I kind of don’t want to talk about it, but let’s get this out of the way, I have about 666 showers to take if I ever want to be able to face myself in the mirror again¹.

Known as KIRK in a previous incarnation, these bastards from Basel’s fairly efficient website labels them with the mostly useless tag of ‘melodic metal,’ but those familiar with the band’s past could (and should) have warned me: Gods of Silence are a power metal band, damn it. The namesake intro establishes this right out the gate, and vocalist Gilbi Meléndez and keyboardist Bruno Berger refuse to let that be forgotten for the remaining 10 tracks. Indeed, the Gods bestow blessings of cheese and digitized ivory on every song, with keyboards crafting symphonic landscapes reminiscent of Epica and Dragonforce, while Meléndez soars over everything, carried on dairy wings by the spirits of Geoff Tate and Warrel Dane. Ever wonder what it would sound like if Steel Panther’s Satchel sang from his childhood imagination instead of from his teenage boner? Me neither, but it’s a fair comparison, and it honestly isn’t terrible. The heavy burden of keeping things ‘metal enough’ falls on axe-slinger Sammy Lasagni and skin-pounder Philipp Eichenberger, and they clearly do not take this task lightly. Instead of turning Neverland into a LARP-themed wankfest, Lasagni keeps things moving with chugging rhythms and occasional melodic flair, often coupling nicely with the keyboard atmospheres from Hate Crew-era Children of Bodom. Eichenberger never steals the show, but his coordinated restraint and pacing keep the 51 minutes of magic and muenster moving and manageable.

I’m a man of wealth and taste, you see, and while I did not appreciate being dragged into a world known for its cheap cheese, I cannot profess to be anything other than pleased with this place known as Neverland. As I wander through this symphonic kingdom, I can try to hide a smile, but I simply cannot help but bang my head along to the national anthems of this deceptive world. Looking beyond such silliness as the lycanthroparmesan “Full Moon” or the made-for-anime anthem “Wonderful Years,” listeners will recognize they’re dealing with some genuinely talented musicians. Furthermore, while Neverland is ridiculously power metal at times (the ‘Ashes! To ashes!’ line in “The Phoenix” is forever burned into my nightmares), the music itself is always solid. “Against the Wall” alone will likely instill cognitive dissonance among the brutal and trve crowd as they fight to keep their necks still and their fists out of the air. It’s power metal, all right (ASHES! TO ASHES!!!) but it’s still metal metal, alright? We know you’re too kvlt for this, but you’ll be fine, just close your eyes and think of Dio.

What’s not particularly fine, though, is the sonic absence of bassist Daniel Pfister from the mix. If there’s any kind of punchy bass work going on here, it’s pummeled and knocked out by everything else. This is not to say that the mix itself is awful, as none of the other instrumentation is at war with itself. The keyboards are given a clear but appropriately subdued presence to maintain melodic atmospheres, and even the shrillest of power metal vocal tropes (ASHES! TO ASHES!!!) never stifle the surrounding sonic scenery. No, the mix seems fine, the bassist just seems gone, possibly off doing werewolf things. The music never feels lacking, however, and honestly there are far worse sins a fledgling power metal act could commit beyond banishing their bassist to the background.

Dreaded power metal it may be, but Neverland is a stellar debut and I can’t hate on it. The music is well composed and enjoyable, a listening experience on par with anything Gods’s more established peers and influences dish out. Where it causes disapproving head shaking in some, it will incite rapturous head banging in others, whether they want to or not. Gods of Silence have truly created something to be proud of, no matter how much it shames this particular Mvppet to revel in something so unkvlt.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Rock of Angels Records
Websites: godsofsilence.bandcamp.com | godsofsilence.com | facebook.comgodsofsilence
Releases Worldwide: September 8th, 2017

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Heads up, Angry Metal Explorers! Today we’re taking a magic carpet ride to a whole not-so-new world, a faraway place where the caravan camels roam. We’re going (going, back back) to Israel. Israel. Not exactly a land lauded for its black metal scene, but here we are, gathering our courage to sneak a glimpse at a trve monster born of death metal dreams in blackened Arabian nights. They call this beast Arallu, and we would do well to avoid letting it sneak up on us with its latest weapon, Six. Knowledge is power, yo, so let’s get our learn on.

Like anywhere, Israel isn’t completely devoid of metal, hiding such diamonds as Azazel and Melechesh in the rough sands of the underground. In fact, Encyclopaedia Metallum lists over 250 bands as hailing from there, but with roughly half of them disbanded and the rest nailed to obscurity, the place isn’t exactly Poland. With the bands 6^th offering, however, Arallu may put their homeland one jump ahead of the evil game. They’ve been doing their blackened deathy thing since ’98, and a recent perusal of their discography revealed that the talent has always been there, particularly evident on 2015’s Geniewar. Back then, Arallu were simply savage. 2 years later, these guys have whipped themselves into something downright barbaric, like cut-off-your-ear-if-they-don’t-like-your-face barbaric.  We’ll hope it doesn’t come to that, but if I’m too late with my warning, here’s what you’re missing (y’know, besides an ear).

Categorizing Arallu isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but ‘Middle Eastern blackened death’ does the trick. Sometimes they sound as if Woe had spent one thousand and one nights in Agrabah, or Behemoth if they brushed up on their Sunday salaam. Tracks such as “Only One Truth” and “Possessed by the Sleep” tell such tales, while “Philosophers” might be a cooler God Dethroned track than anything the de-seaters of deities have done themselves since Passiondale. The band always sounds very much like their own kind of monster, though, and much of that credit goes to vocalist/bassist Butchered’s feral screams and Eylon Bart’s generous application of saz and darbuka to the misanthropic mix. The native instruments lend a balanced tinge of Eastern flavor to an already tasty recipe, but Butchered’s vocals take the cake and do unspeakable things to it with a forceful brutality that any fan of death will surely admire. Escalating from Nergal-on-PCP rage to Maladie levels of torture at times, the vocal performance is as trve as they come, and much of Six’s strength stems from said screams.

There’s no question this Arallu’s alluring, and much of what keeps it from ever being ordinary or boring comes from the band knowing when to move from one spectacular coterie to another. “Possessed by the Sleep,” for example, greets us with an eerie Eastern intro before guitarists Pixel and Omri Yagen lug some chug along a Chimaira-y groove, which then explodes into pure death metal glory while Butchered builds his barrage of brutality into a trvly unhinged black metal wail towards the end. Drummer Assaf Kassimov displays similarly excellent exploratory skills throughout the album’s 38ish minutes, gently maintaining the atmosphere with tribal drums one moment and double bass blast-beating with the best of them the next.

Everything about the album just plain impresses, but that’s not to say that it’s entirely without fault. Album closer “Soulless Soldier” houses both of my gripes, namely the comparative weakness of said song and its abrupt ending, which doubles as the end of the album. I wandered through the ol’ bazaar with bated breath and a compounding sense of nervous optimism as track after track roared by with teeth bared, which only made “Soulless Soldier” feel that much weaker when it arrived. One lackluster track after everything beforehand being as strong as ten songs is forgivable, but it’s the abrupt ending that really gets my camel¹. Practically in the middle of a riff, and without so much as a ‘close sesame’ for warning, “Soulless Soldier” suddenly stops, somewhat sapping Six of its shining, shimmering splendor. A minor quibble, sure, but a quibble nonetheless.

All in all, this album is hotter than hot in a lot of good ways. The songwriting is superb, the music itself is killer, and with such heavy ammunition in their camp Arallu have proven themselves a barbaric force to be reckoned with. Six is a winner, a whiz, a wonder, and a trve testament to the Israeli black metal scene. Stop listening to silly Disney shit and check it out, already.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: arallu.bandcamp.com |  facebook.com/arallu666
Releases Worldwide: September 22nd, 2017

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Oh, what a fool I have been… Once, I believed my own open-mindedness to be a virtue, one which could help me expose the world to musical truths they might otherwise never learn. Once, I believed myself able to see past the veils and charades of societal labels, to be able to transcend the likes of religious affiliation in order to experience art for art’s sake. Once, I believed that I could overcome any element of musical unpleasantness if the rest of the material was strong enough. I have loved the likes of Mos Def, Flyleaf, and Ghost Bath, and felt no shame. Once, I believed all this to be enough to allow me to find redemption in any kind of music… until I heard Enzo and the Glory Ensemble’s In the Name of the Son. I had to accept a cold, hard truth that I have spent many years championing against: some stuff is just as bad as it sounds like it will be. On that note, let’s talk about the neo-symphonic Christian metal album that I’m about to ruin your day with.

First of all, I can’t unburden my soul with lamentations of this aural assault without conceding that it was delivered unto me at the hands of musicians most educated and skillful; any album blessed with the presence of artists such as Kobi Farhii (Orphaned Land), Mark Zonder (Fates Warning, Warlord) and Marty Fuckin Friedman — just to name a few of Enzo’s apostles — will inherently contain complex, intricate material. Material which truly requires some serious talent and education to compose and execute. Yay verily, Enzo himself hath studied piano, composition and classical guitar, as well as having composed, directed and acted in a few operatic pieces. Indeed, this particular cheese’s Christ superstar wears a coat of many accomplished colors, and it would be wildly unfair of me to damn this offering, the follow-up to 2015’s In the Name of the Father, as being one of poor musical quality. No, Enzo and co. know exactly what they’re doing with this particular collection of hymns, psalms, and prayer set to 11.

Unfortunately, if you can imagine an over-the-top Broadway production praising God through ‘safe’ metal moments buried under Disney vocals and painfully glaring lighting arrangements, then you also know exactly what Enzo and friendos are doing. I was anxious but determined to be optimistic as opener “Waiting for the Son” wandered in with a cheerful, building atmosphere of strings and woodwinds, tastefully fading back for a moment to reveal a brief, snaking guitar line before segueing into the next track. After that, all Hell broke loose. Classic arrangements, symphonic flare-ups alongside decidedly driven guitar/drum passages, folk instrumentation entwined with modern metal melodies, all this and more…

…laid to utter ruin by every vocal moment of the album. Power metal stylings are simply not my cup of tea, so let me be the first to admit that I’m probably not the right Muppet for this job, but I’m pretty confident that many of you will agree that things got taken a bit too far on this one. Whether it’s the obnoxiously angelic choir of “The Tower of Babel” or Enzo’s own Disney-villain nasal musings, nearly every vocal performance feels forced, rather than felt, and overdone to boot. The female vocals on “Glory to God” are a decidedly welcome exception to this dilemma, and “Psalm 133” crafts a folk/metal/classical/Jesus combo that actually works, but that’s about the extent of my praise here, and neither are enough to save …the Son.

To be fair, this album would be a good instrumental offering, possibly even great. The mix is as clear and dynamic as one should expect of such experienced, well-trained musicians, and the compositions themselves are often incredibly strong. The inspiration and passion are very much alive and well within the music, but the vocal performances by and large made it impossible for me to listen for too terribly long. I went into this with an almost painfully open mind — I wanted to like this, damn it, but it just didn’t happen. However, subjectivity, ya know?. Don’t take my word for it, listen for yourself. The instrumentation and compositional execution are undeniably top notch, and it’s entirely possible that many of you may even love the vocal performances found on …the Son. I, however, did not¹

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Rockshots Records
Websites: enzodonnarumma.com | facebook.com/enzoandtheglory
Releases Worldwide: September 29th, 2017

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The times, they are a-changin’. As humanity swipes, clicks and shuffles its feet further into Millenium #3, a quick glance away from the phone (it’s scary, but I know you can do it!) reveals to us an ever-changing reality, the likes of which the spirits of humanity past would scarcely recognize. Behold, a world where there are more gender options than prog sub-genres, dolphins are people, and crunk-core is a thing. The world has moved on, woe Discordia, and every day sees more and more elements of the past being phased out of existence. Goodbye, Pogs. Farewell, AIM. RIP Nu-Metal (no, seriously, please rest). The sands of time are a cruel invading force, whatever will they snatch up next? Chile’s Thy Serpent’s Cult may be bowing out of the fight after nine years of thrashing to death, but their answer, given in their swan scream album Supremacy of Chaos, remains as trve and timeless as ever: Not our fucking death metal.

From the fuck-your-feelings album art, such titular gems as “Pedophiliac Priest” or “Apocalyptic Horse of War,” to the Slayer-esque album title, Supremacy offers neither pretense nor apology for its old-school death ways. Indeed, the album opens with a few moments of ominous sound effects and then it’s nothing but nineties-style brutal death for the next 37 minutes. Shredtastic leads, neck-breaking drums, and invocations of the Devil abound, eschewing all modern trends and tones to construct a living, growling monument to the glory days of the genre. Here at Thy Serpent’s Cult’s Home for Wayward Carcass Fans, you never have to worry about fancy digital effects or progressive bloat, just riffs, solos and Satan. Frenzied chugging rhythms, a punchy bass, and hateful growls and gurgles take us back to the days of honest-to-Satan death metal. You know, all that stuff that never gets old…

…or does it? Keeping a 20+ years-old sub-genre frozen in time can be tough to do without rendering the sound downright stale, and there are more than a few moments throughout Supremacy that might find listeners scratching their metal heads and wondering where they heard that riff before. Songs like “Goddess of Lust” and “Pedophiliac Priest” certainly kick their fair share of ass, but it’s all ass that’s been previously kicked to Hell and back by the likes of Carcass, Morbid Angel, and Cannibal Corpse. Everything sounds just as evil and aggressive as you would expect from a band emulating such hallowed heroes of hateful heaviness, and therein lies the dividing line between those who will and will not join the Cult: Supremacy sounds the way you expect it to because you can expect it to sound a certain way, being that it’s a very straightforward attempt to simply keep the genre alive, rather than expounding upon anything at all. Guitarist JC noodles and chugs along to vocalist Hatred’s throatier take on Nathan Explosion, high-gain guitar solos get accentuated by bassist Black Dwarf as Strife pummels it all forward on the skins, and after roughly 40 minutes we arrive at our destination: division. Where some will hear idol worship and a sonic tribute to days long gone, others will hear unambitious mimicry and a distinct lack of innovation, but which opinion is right?

The answer, of course, is ‘mine’ and it is such: subjectivity, yo. I, for one, am not in any particularly great need of a ‘new’ old-school death metal album, as I find the sound to be largely repetitive now that everybody and their mother has been doing it for a few decades. That said, Thy Serpent’s Cult know exactly what they’re about and don’t pretend that they’re anything they’re not, and if you love any of the bands mentioned above then you will love this. Thy Serpent’s Cult dedicated 9 years to keeping the dream of the nineties death metal scene alive and well, and though this is to be their last album together, they’ve managed to craft something which has by rights already stood the test of time. Maybe it’s not for you, listening to Deafheaven and Snapchat-ing selfies in your shiny new Ray Bans, but you there, with your wallet-chain wrapped around the neck of said Deafhipster as your ever-fading Butchered at Birth cassette drowns out their screams… this one’s for you.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ordo MCM Records
Websites: Too Serpent Kvlt for Interwebz
Releases Worldwide: October 23rd, 2017

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In a faraway corner of the Southern hemisphere belonging to radiant women and men who loot (and labor), a storm is brewing. A seething swarm of stoner sludge swirls and simmers in the starless sky, and my advice, should you hear that thunder, is the same as Colin Hay’s: you better run, you better take cover. A scant 2 years after dropping a self-titled pseudopodian riff bomb on an unsuspecting world, Melbourne’s Motherslug have added a second full-length to their cornucopia of doom, and all the salt in the world won’t keep you safe from this slugger. You’ve probably picked up on my positive reception of this album by now, being smart enough to lurk in the Angry Metal Garden and all, so let’s slither our way through a word or two and find out why.

The Australian doomsters have named this most recent offering The Electric Dunes of Titan, an aptly image-invoking title if ever there was one. From the slowburn of gatecrasher “Downriver” right up to the last cymbal gently crashing its way out of “Cave of the Last God” and The Electric Dunes altogether, everything feels titanic and electric, and I’ll be damned if the copious levels of sustained feedback and downtuned fuzz don’t lend a sense of being, as put during a random astronomy lesson delivered on “Staring at the Sun”, ‘in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere’. I don’t want this to come as too much of a shock, but these guys win their race slowly and steadily. The riffs are there, and they are excellent, but it’s the band’s keen sense of maintaining a lumbering, monolithic atmosphere that makes this mother worth its salt. Taking cues from Electric Wizard and Sleep, Motherslug tend to simmer in an ooze of rumbling sludge tones and reverb-laden harmonics before revealing their sinister riff armada in any given song, and the payoff is as rewarding as anything by either aforementioned band.

The Jeffrey-Nothing-does-Danzig vocals of Cameron Crichton are delivered admirably and suit the music quite well, ranging from slightly ominous cleans to snarling shouts. What makes this band work, however, is… well, the band. Nick Radcliffe and his trusty drum kit keep everything plodding along smoothly with the pacing sensibilities of Black Sabbath or Destroyer of Light, never stealing the show but always keeping it alive. The give and take of Regan Batley and Cynthia Bae on guitar and bass, respectively, employs a similarly effective mentality, working together at all times and never upstaging each other. “Serpents” sees the band displaying this sense of cohesive creativity to perfection, opening with a slow motion peyote trip of minimalist techniques accentuated and strengthened by each member of the band before coalescing into a firestorm of fuzzy riffs and overdriven lead work. With relatively little focus given to flashiness or effects, Motherslug reaffirm the chosen doctrine of the trvly kvlt: sometimes, less really is more. Go figure.

One of the most shocking things I found on The Electric Dunes (I’ll see myself out) was the clarity of the mix. Even as “Cave of the Last God” writhes in its thickest, sludgiest sections, you can still hear not only the guitar notes buried within the fuzz, but the other individual instruments as well. Beyond that, the intermittent moments of lazily plucked Knopfler-esque clean tones sound truly beautiful atop Bae’s bass base, something I don’t typically expect from a stoner doom act with ‘slug’ in the name. The Dunes may rest under a choked sky of sludge clouds and feedback showers, but a clear mix with an average DR of 9 allow the music to breathe comfortably as it follows the snail trail to the end.

Perhaps more shocking, still, is the fact that these Aussies managed to make 44 minutes of doomy goodness fly by so deceptively quickly. I credit this to superior track placement, as the one song that suffers from a touch of drag (“Followers of the Sun”) is disposed of early in the album and followed only by greatness, the end result being a doom experience that almost feels too quick. If I have any other complaints, they mostly revolve around uttering the band name in public and should be ignored entirely. Between the riffs and the tones, they could go by Butt Gobbler and I’d still praise them. All in all, The Electric Dunes of Titan is one bad mother, and I expect Motherslug to take the doom scene by storm if they can continue down this road.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Independent Release
Websites: motherslug.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/motherslugband
Releases Worldwide: October 31^st, 2017

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This one goes out to the one I love, the one I’ve left behind. Everyone get in line, then leave the hall. Today we’re taking a field trip, a pilgrimage back in time to grounds hallowed in the name of the religion I thought I’d lost: Rock ‘n fucking roll, the Great Old Riffy One which cannot die yet has for strange eons lain sleeping and dormant. I’m not here to bash on modern ‘rock’ bands, such talk would only hinder this review, and even if I waited the three days grace period I wouldn’t get so much as a nickel back for putting in my own two cents. No, we’re not gonna talk about that kind of rock. Instead, let’s go home again, to a world of bitchin’ guitars and VHS tapes. Everybody get on the bus, and be sure to say hello to our drivers, Hobosexual. They’ll be taking us where we wanna go by way of their third album, the future-fearing Monolith.

To fully appreciate where we’re going, we must understand a few things about Hobosexual. Firstly, they’re not metal, and that isn’t going to kill you. I might though, if you opt to miss out on this slab of goodness based on that detail alone, but let’s try to avoid all that. Secondly, that name. According to the band’s Facebook page, ‘Hobosexual was adopted by Ben and Jeff as a tongue in cheek dictatorial spin on affiliation as antiquated preference, the original and CORRECT GREEK root (a la not disgusting) meaning of the compound word “Hobo-Sexual” being: “One who cares little for their own personal appearance.”’ The Photometers will agree, and that’s just fine. Ben Harwood (guitars, vocals) and Jeff Silva (drums) have been rallying against today’s ADD plagued ego-stroke culture under the Hobosexual moniker since 2009, Monolith being the third installment in the band’s ongoing conceptual rendering of the great cold death of trve true art and individualism, and let me tell you: this thing fucking rocks.

Through a truly wondrous combination of lyrics and riffs, Monolith tells the story of an individual being driven crazy by various elements of modern culture. Continuing where 2013’s Hobosexual II left off, the album wakes up and goes for a drive with “Trans Am Sunday,” kicking things off right with anthemic guitars and musings on the Trans Am in question, which apparently is known for ‘Unprotected sex for days/ and illegal fireworks’. By contrast, the music itself is serious as hell, maintaining a loose but fervent, desperate atmosphere of longing for better times. My interest was piqued by this point, and I found my faith restoring itself along with every successive track as the Hobos lead me through this Jet-meets-Guns N Roses world of theirs. Whether it’s the balls-out “Up the Down Walls” or the laid back burn-cruiser “VHS or Sharon Stone”, Monolith is always identifiable as a kickass rock album, without an apology or identity crisis to be had. I defy anyone to explore “The Grey Mountain” and report back unsatisfied.

Perhaps my favorite part of this Delorean ride is that it’s taken solely with Ben and Jeff, or as their Facebook bills them: ‘2 beards, 4 amps, and more raw talent than Jesus.’ Aside from the occasional soundbite used to keep the story moving, every sound on this album is actually produced by one of two humans playing an instrument, rather than programmed and drowned in a lacquer of digital effects and polish. Whether it’s Ben’s vocal ventures into Axl Rose/Dr. Rockzo territory on “Cincinnati Juggernaut,” the utter badassery of the title track, or literally any given example of Jeff’s drumming throughout, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the sheer strength of these two dudes’ performance throughout the entire album. The rocking ways of old may not be everybody’s thing these days, but Hobosexual have created a pretty great-sounding and convincing argument for change.

I, for one, welcome our new, deviant homeless overlords. Only Jens Kidman and AMG Himself were born predisposed to enjoy metal, the rest of us got here by way of rock ‘n roll, and I admire this sonic slap to the face of Thomas Wolfe. Between the sound and the concept, Hobosexual have created something truly monolithic indeed, a genuine work of art on a level we’ve been wandering away from for far too long. Monolith is more than just a simple prop to occupy one’s time. If this grand Trans Am-O-Rama is what you call rock, then rock is not dead.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Kitchenable Records
Websites: hobosexualmusic.bandcamp.com | hobosexualband.com | facebook.com/hobomusic
Releases Worldwide: November 3rd, 2017

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Atmospheric doom/sludge. Ponder that tag and allow the words and your imagination to create a world, a special place of their design. Personally, there’s no light where those words take me. I see the genre before me and am transported somewhere dark, cold; visions of Errata convulse under Clouds which Swallow the Sun, and I begin to dream of a place that I could call home. Norway, Finland, Russia, Canada… the lands of ice and snow dance behind my eyes, and I am as unable to resist the siren call of such a genre as <celebrity in 2017> is able to resist <heinous act>. I have a thing for getting choked and caressed to by the sounds of scenery scorned by the sun, so I must admit that I was most fascinated by one specific aspect of Jupiterian when I chose to review their second full-length, Terraforming: these motherfuckers are Brazilian, yo [Yo ho ho, no more yos for thee. – Steel].

This intrigued me most because I wanted to hear what, if any, cultural influences would surface throughout the album’s six tracks, and how such fora da caixa fare might help to push the envelope in some way. Turns out, the only real examples of such exploration are boxed into the percussion of “Matriarch” and “Forefathers”. Otherwise, this atmospheric doom/sludge album is pretty straightforward blackened doom, albeit one with a genre identity crisis. From start to finish, Terraforming takes the grounds which bands such as Behemoth or Blut Aus Nord have tread their cloven hooves upon and Ahabs the ebony terrain into something monolithic and slow, the landscape altered yet still familiar.

Familiarity is fine when it comes to identifying inspiration, but formulaic songwriting is a different story, especially when that story is told in five tracks out of six. The first telling is in opener “Matriarch,” and it goes like this: The gates of Terraforming are slowly, menacingly drawn open by percussion and ambience, then torn asunder as guitarists V and A drag us through fields of blackened doom akin to a slower Behemoth passage. After skulking through the introductory fog and wandering through a chuggy, doomy valley, things lull for a breather before the track re-energizes itself and we find ourselves rising, climbing with the music and V’s Nergal-y roars. We crest at an atmospheric peak, then cast ourselves from such great heights as the mounting fury of the journey explodes into a supernova of unbridled rage and chaos. The onslaught eventually subsides, leaving us able to catch our breath or bleed out as needed. The end result makes for a strong start, but it unfortunately somewhat weakens the succeeding tracks once you realize that the song is not so much an opening statement as it is a template of everything to come, the slight exception to this being the somehow bearable “Unintelligible Screaming Buried Under Ambient Noise” title track.

To that end, the music itself is never boring. While the foundation of each offering may be essentially identical, the well of inspiration which these Brazilians draw from runs deep, and a tasteful array of soundscapes provides the variety necessary to prevent déjà vu. Whether it’s the crawling Behemoth worship of “Matriarch,” the Saturnus-does-Insomnium melodies of “Unearthly Glow,” or the Dodecahedron tones of “Forefathers,” the tonal realm being explored is diverse enough that one can forgive the predictability. Nothing in these Jupiterian lands reeks of outright plagiarism or unoriginality; rather, everything simply follows the same path to reach its destination. While the last album and earlier EP’s may have been a bit more explorative, the band has still managed to craft something worth visiting in Terraforming. Bassists in particular may find this one to be yet another slap to the face as B-ist R continues the quiet legacy of absentee low-enders in metal mixes, but aside from that and the Alphabits shtick there is very little to complain about here.

Ultimately, Terraforming is a solid album. Exotic envelope-pusher it mayn’t be, but the band displays a strong understanding of at least one song structure and they’re clearly able to draw from multiple sources of inspiration and blend it all into something of their own. Without a litany of rain ‘n snow soaked brothers in blackened doom crowding their local metal scene it should be a little easier for the band to stand out and command attention. I’ll be making the occasional pilgrimage back to this, and I’m certainly keen to see where Jupiterian takes us next, I just hope that future releases see more shape thrown into their darkly colorful world.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: jupiterian.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/jupiteriandoom
Releases Worldwide: November 15th, 2017

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Oh, December. That special time of year, when the masses try to buy their way out of SAD, supermarkets become more unbearable than usual thanks to seasonal saccharine soundtracks, and even the AMG promo bin transforms into a smoldering heap of nope. Some blind themselves to the solstice’s sadness with festive lights, others drown it in nog, but let me assure you: there will be no happiness. Austrian black metallers The Negative Bias feel me, and with a culture-transcending “bah, hvmbvg” these angry metal guys have dropped their debut just in time to fuck up your holiday. Or your not-holiday, who cares. I don’t have anything nice to say, so let’s channel that negative bias into talking about… The Negative Bias.

First of all, neither the band name nor album art is particularly standout, and the title Lamentations of the Chaos Omega all but screams “every black metal album ever”. I went for Lamentations because I saw vanilla and smelled blood: someone has to shame 2017’s incessant flow of so-so black metal into a disco-esque retreat, and I would be remiss to turn down such an opportunity whilst everyone is busy reveling in holiday spirit(s) and trying to convince themselves that the world doesn’t suck. Well, newsflash, poseurs: everything does suck, and The Negative Bias suck more than anyone, for not only proving my initial instincts wrong but for fucking up my year-end list at the last possible second as well. Dicks.

The offense begins with “The Golden Key to a Pandemonium Kingdom,” perhaps the most appropriately titled album opener of all time. In the course of 9 minutes, we are introduced to a world hosting such diverse tropes as Winterfylleth-esque Viking chants, lead bass melodies, modern Paradise Lost doom riffage set to furious black metal drumming and an atmosphere of discord that Ulcerate would be proud of. This, of course, pisses me off. How am I supposed to convey how these heathens sound to you heathens when one moment they’re Borknagar, Hypocrisy the next, and then suddenly they’re Dodecahedron? Seriously, I’m worried that my favorite bands are locked in an Austrian dungeon, freshly sapped of their powers and left to rot as The Negative Bias usurps their respective kingdoms. These guys aren’t black metal, they’re all the black metal. Look no further than “Journey Into the Defleshed Paradise” to hear such influences fused together more perfectly than any one song should ever be able to accomplish. Moreover, they manage to make their unholy amalgamation of all things negative work together with a cohesive flow that utterly belies the fact that this monstrous entity of darkness is a debut album…

…By three fucking people?! Now I’m absolutely furious. What business, what right does Austria have producing superhumans capable of such magick? The trio either made one hell of a deal with Satan or else has ridiculous studio skills, I absolutely refuse to believe that your run-of-the-mill mortal is capable of conceiving and crafting these chaotic compositions. S.T’s guitar and bass work renders each track unpredictable and unique, and I.F.S’s Peter Tagtgren vocal style effectively immobilizes me if I’m wearing sweatpants. Florian Musil is credited for studio drums and is apparently mortal enough to use a real name, but his presence is no less demonic or powerful as it pummels the album and listener into blast-beaten realms of insanity and despair. Even the ambient “Cryptic Echoes From Beyond Dimensions” works more than it should, its droning celestial atmosphere punctuated by eerie spoken-word narratives producing a serenely uncomfortable interlude, similar to gazing at the star-strewn sky from the beach in Wristcutters: A Love Story. Given I.F.S and S.T’s respective histories with Alastor and Golden Dawn, I knew that these lads had experience, but how dare they keep greatness of this caliber a secret ‘til now?

Lamentations is, simply put, nothing to lament about. Sarcasm, envy and awe aside, I have nothing but praise for this album. I fully expected to hear the same black metal mimicry that every other kid with a computer floods Bandcamp with these days, and instead, I found one of the most innovative blackened releases of the year, 44 minutes of hellacious bliss. My 2017 shortlist is in ruins, and I couldn’t be happier. It’ll still be a long December, but with the advent of The Negative Bias, there’s reason to believe that maybe this coming year will be better than the last.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: ATMF Records
Websites: thenegativebias.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/thenegativebias
Releases Worldwide: December 1st, 2017

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There is a river in us all. It flows a unique spirit through our veins, the life blood of individuality. It gives our identities health and life, and drowns the rest of the world. We float along our own rivers of inspiration, each current of catharsis unique to its respective sojourner yet universally binding us in our need to follow these fjords on a slow course to oblivion, until there is nothing left of us here. Dark is the River ov Muppet, not unlike the waves of Black Lake Ni∂stång which carried me through the falling snow of Maine’s dead winter days for years. What I’m trying to say is that I really, really miss Agalloch. Blending folk, black metal and doom into something too good for this world, Agalloch just fucking got it, and I considered the great cold death of the band as conclusive proof to the absence of the divine. Who, then, would tuck me in at night with a desolation song and pale folklore of stone, wind, and pillor?

The answer, revealed after a decidedly brief period of grief-induced psychosis, was the best one a Muppet could hope for: John Haughm, the melancholy spirit himself. Enter: Pillorian, Obsidian Arc. The wooden doors open with the first acoustic notes of “By the Light of a Black Sun,” and there is an undeniable similarity to the dark matter gods of old, but make no mistake: this is not Agalloch 2.0, or worse yet, Agalloch Lite. Rising like bloodbirds from the white mountain on which Agalloch did die, Pillorian carve their legacy from the hollow stone of our pantheist idols and burn it birch black.

To see the lineage of the past reborn so darkly, wander the enchanted ebony hallways of “A Stygian Pyre” or “Forged Iron Crucible,” where the melancholy of The Mantle has been charred into something far more scornful. The masterful blending of charged violence and acoustic calm that we know, love, and miss is quite present, but oh so much angrier. Rather than peering through every window into the past, Obsidian Arc forges a path ahead into the marrow of trve black metal’s spirit. While one can clearly hear aforetoomanytimesmentioned band’s influence, listeners will recognize this as something more sinister than anything by the heathen saints of serpents and spheres.

That said, the ghosts of Haughm’s musical past can’t help but rise from the flames, and nowhere is their haunting presence felt more strongly or perfectly than on closer “Dark is the River of Man.” An ominously mercurial and flowing clean intro, doleful rasps and haunting guitar melodies coalesce into the most beautifully dark song that Agalloch never wrote, their old voice of wisdom haunting the vale as a new age of rebirth darkens the dawn. I’m running out of references and allotted words, so suffice it to say that the song fucking rules. If you liked Agalloch, you’ll love this.

If you missed this, stop everything and fix that/yourself; let Pillorian teach you their ways of hatred, unlight, and death. There is no turning back from here. With Obsidian Arc, Haughm and crew push us into the black mire of the future 48 minutes at a time, and I for one welcome our scornful new overlords.

Tracks to check out: “Dark is the River of Man,” “By the Light of a Black Sun,” “A Stygian Pyre.”

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This might be difficult to believe, coming from an adult who pretends to be a Muppet and uses his free time to write about metal for $0.00/hr, but sometimes I make decisions which are… well, I won’t say ‘stupid’, as I’m a freakin’ genius, yo….But being of such mortal-mindset transcendence, I’ve been known to choose me a choice or two that made roughly zero sense to roughly everyone who wasn’t me. I walk the Oz-ian line of ideas most frequently when I’m out Bandcamping, where something as simple as a particularly fetching album cover can damn me to another week of poverty before I’ve so much as heard a note. Say what you want about my decision-making skills, my vinyl collection is cooler than yours.

What was I babbling about? Oh, right, Cascades. I discovered their eponymous debut among the ‘campgrounds earlier this year, a knee-jerk purchase triggered by my enthrallment with the cover scenery. For the sake of getting back on track, I’ll put it like this: the music, for once, matches the artwork. Like, perfectly. Cascades is a landscape, a sprawling expanse of scenery and living, breathing ambiance. The journey is barely over half an hour long, but it is a wondrous experience. Befitting the scenic adventure promised by the cover, the songs are able to evoke serene moments of reflection, heart-pounding adrenaline rushes, and breathless, cathartic passages which envelope the listener in the sheer beauty of it all.

Cascades set up camp with gear largely borrowed from the likes of Deftones, Spotlights, and Neurosis, using all of it to forge a trail of their own. The atmosphere is certainly redolent of said post-masters, but the hardcore growls set against a much darker sky and sporadic bonfires of Converge-esque aggression transform familiar territory into something new, something wild. Any given song might find the band simmering in postal peace or else writhing in hardcore chaos, but never for long enough for either to be considered the defining nature of the track. If a song starts out calmly you can bet that you’ll be winded by the end of it, just as the balls-out opening of “Divide” completely defies the breath-collecting tranquility of its middle section.

Much of that magic is made possible by the brilliant progressive shifting that occurs all throughout the album. These Aussies never stay in any one influential neck of the woods for too long, making it rather difficult to pigeonhole them into any one genre. “Ceaseless,” for example, begins its journey in darkly calm Pink Floydian territory before launching into something akin to Deftones with Cult of Luna vocals, eventually returning to even Floydier serenity only to go all Neurosis on us. As I said, this truly is a journey through many varying soundscapes, and Cascades certainly know all the best paths to take.

Ultimately, Cascades is an adventure, one best experienced from beginning to end. The whole bit about books and covers aside, it was a relief – almost a shock, really – to hear an album so perfectly represented by its cover art. If sonic walks in the woods are your thing, then slap on your listening boots and get to stepping. If not, then I don’t understand you at all, and I’m happy to have wasted your time.

Tracks to check out: All of them. There are only 5, you lazy shits.

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There’s no way around it: depression is a bitch. I’m not talking about the kind that visits briefly after watching ‘Requiem for a Dream’; I’m talking about the kind that dowses your reality in darkness, buries the world under ice, then bares its teeth and screams into the wind, until the grim leviathan itself is all that you are aware of. The beast can be summoned by such various factors as genetics, trauma, or even the fucking weather, and knowing how to fend it off can quite literally be the difference between life and death. For many, this means hiding in the warm glow of a positive support system when the emotional forecast calls for misery. I, however, am a storm chaser. When others bury their heads and chant “Rain, rain, go away”, I light a cigarette and whisper “Hello, Darkness, my old friend,” then wallow with the likes of Katatonia, Clouds, Draconian, October Tide, Saturnus and so very many more.

My point: I’m no stranger to emptiness, I have used music as an outlet for my own struggles with depression for almost thirty years and my music library is positively littered with negativity. The sounds of being depressed have haunted my ears in varying shades of grey for as long as I can remember, but never before have I heard an album embody depression itself with the same level of unnerving perfection as Slow’s V – Oceans does. A 55-minute slab of Belgian sadness, Oceans harnesses the darkest powers of our subconscious depths and renders them exquisitely, crushingly real. If that icy giant from the first paragraph ever recorded an album, this would be it.

Pianos punctuate the surrounding dark, adding the vaguest shimmer of light yet illuminating only misery with their doleful keys. The guitars craft dense atmospheres somewhere between Clouds and Départe on despairoids, effectively robbing the listener of breath as they churn their way through the stifling seas of sadness. Percussion is delivered effectively with a sense of patience that defies mortal attention spans, but it’s Déhà’s tremendous vocals that steal the show and lend it its credibility. These are not the sniffles of the voice in your head telling you that Ben and Jerry will save you. This is the ancient guttural roar of depression itself, the timeless evil of mental turmoil sonically brought to life.

It should come as no surprise that Oceans takes the turtle approach, and by taking things… unfastly, Slow more than win all throughout the album. The payout of Déhà’s monstrous bellows when the piano-induced suspense of “Néant” finally explodes floors me every time, an emotional reaction made possible by refusing to rush. Similar rise-and-fall dynamics feature heavily throughout the album, and they all work to devastating effect. Subsequently, Oceans works best when experienced front to back, alone and in the dark. This may be easier for some than others, given Oceans’ 55-minute playtime, but c’mon. You knew what you were getting into here.

Music is my favorite way to confront depression, and Oceans has crawled to the highest point on my low list. This is not musical commiseration, but a monolog by the monster itself. There is no happiness here, but sometimes that’s the point. If you’re up for being so down, I promise the rewards are worth it.

Tracks to check out: “Oceans (Full)”

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Let me tell you something which you might already know but have most likely never heard stated directly: Master-baiting is incredibly easy. To set a Muppet trap, one only needs a handful of specific pearls to effectively get me off of one musical tangent and thrusted furiously into another. Slap the black metal tag on something, slather it in cvlt artwork and croon it to me in a foreign tongue and I’m about as sonically revved up as they come. The promo bin, tempting mistress that she be, whispered sweet nothings of Trono Além Morte’s full-length debut to me, and I jumped like I haven’t jumped on anything since prom night. O Olhar Atento de Escuridão had its way with me, and it trvly was prom night all over again:

Overhyped expectations brought to their knees by the crushing weight of reality, the frantic sense of entrapment that comes with being stuck somewhere I didn’t want to be, and the sense of shame that accompanies realizing that one has been both used and lied to. To be fair, the album didn’t run off and bang an entire traveling circus, animals and all, but art can only imitate life so much. What matters here is that you learn from my mistakes, lest you go and throw your time and standards away for the first cvlt thing that calls your name. O Olhar… isn’t the worst album in the world, but that’s about the best that I can say for it. I have to say a few more things if I wish to keep making loads of money, though, so I guess kiss and tell it is.

Where this is billed as straight up black metal and presents itself as such, without any guise of artsy atmospheric nonsense, the first red flag flared in the form of the song lengths. Traditional black metal is typically a brief, violent spasm, a sudden and messy affair not usually known for its longevity, yet here I’m seeing 7:10, 9:03, and fucking 10:29 right out the gate??? Indeed, the warning signs were there, but so was the most optimistic of the many voices which haunt my head hole. “How bad can it be?”, inquired that smug little fuck in his most encouraging of tones. “It’s not like it’ll just be ten minutes of nonstop wailing over lo-fi minor chords.” You’re right, asshole. They also have 7:10, 9:03, and three other-length tracks which do exactly that, as well. Maybe putting the biggest block of blackened bloat first and foremost was intended to make the following feel less drawn out, but for me it just set the mood, and sourly.

To make things that much harder, nothing that these anonymous Portuguese posers did aroused any kind of excitement from me. The hateful stank of Celtic Frost or early Burzum lingers heavily in the air, but only Varg could ever approve of the lifelessness exhibited by O Olhar. In trve fashion the recording quality similarly reeks of a brush with Varg, blurring the black stock music into something vaguely cacophonous and eerie yet never outright threatening. Monotone old-school black metal wails throughout with some slight variation into shriek territory on “Deserto da Desolação” and the title track: losing excitement. Plodding songs with minimal structural variation or exploration buried in a shit mix: pushing rope. A drawn-out and unnecessary interlude (“Pesadelos Quebrantes”) before a similarly drawn-out and unnecessary finale, which merely does everything that the album has already done before it finally fucking dies: blve balls.

O Olhar… is the black metal album that people who don’t listen to black metal are afraid of: it’s literally just incessant, unpleasant screaming over evil noise. If it wasn’t for “Pesadelos Quebrantes” and the title track, I don’t even know that I would recognize any of the individual songs apart from each other. Normally only over-the-line threats from the Angry Metal Editors can steer me towards brevity, but I can only say “makes the same shit noises for too long” in so many ways before even I feel like less would be more. It gives me no satisfaction whatsoever to listen to or describe this dead fish of an album, and no amount of alcohol could coax me back into its disappointing arms. The important part: I’m finished. You can leave now.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 5-6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Signal Rex Records
Websites: Not worth a website, apparently
Releases Worldwide: December 21st, 2017

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I try not to expect much from you people, but I think it’s safe to assume that one or two of you just may have heard of one Philip H. Anselmo, and this being the case you may (the ‘may’ is silent) have an opinion regarding the man. I don’t particularly care about any of that, but he definitely does, and this is painfully clear on Choosing Mental Illness As a Virtue, Phil’s second full-length endeavor with The Illegals. There’s new blood in the lineup thanks to a new bassist and guitarist (Walter Howard IV and Mike DeLeon, respectively), and I know that I’m playing right into this angry manbaby’s hands with this damnation, but I have one major takeaway from this album and there’s no getting around it: Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals is a very capable death-sludge band that could be pretty fucking good without Philip H. Anselmo.

This fact makes itself repulsively evident within the first few moments of “Little Fucking Heroes,” in which Phil more or less opens the album with his middle finger. By the sounds of things, the hand not busy flipping off the world is hard at work burying itself in Anselmo’s throat. I don’t know if he’s going for black metal rasps or what, but Phil’s voice makes some very ill advised turns during the song and continues to explore this hideous vocal territory throughout Mental Illness. This isn’t to say that he doesn’t manage to pull off some worthwhile moments; when he sticks to deep ‘n growly death fare, Anselmo almost gives hope to songs like “Photographic Taunts” and the title track. These in-between moments are far too few and far between, however, as any given song sees Phil spasming between multiple vocal registers and rarely does he opt for the good ones. More often than not, what we get from Mental Illness is caveman yelling and Chad Grey on an off-er day (I’m still not entirely convinced that it’s not Mr. MudYeah himself on “The Ignorant Point”), and no one is the better for it.

No one fares worse for Phil doing what he does than The Illegals. Ex Superjoint-ers Stephen Taylor (guitars) and Jose Manuel Gonzales (drums) join Walter and Mike in delivering solid, sludgy death in each of Mental Illness’s ten tracks. “Individual” gets into some really cool death-groove territory reminiscent of Slugdge mating with Chimaira, and “Finger Me” is musically on par with old-school Machine Head, inciting Muppet head banging with every listen. Unfortunately, “Individual” has as much Anselmo on it as everything else here does, and “Finger Me” is lyrically on par with modern Machine Head, inciting Muppet head shaking with every listen. Taylor and DeLeon unleash excellent riffs clad in gloriously chugged death tones on “Invalid Colubrine Fraud” which are far beyond driven to meaninglessness by Anselmo’s wrathful dullard rantings, his angry caveman tone and pacing completely undercutting his own delivery and detracting focus from the cool metal things going on.

This dichotomy between the band’s talent and Phil’s Philness is ultimately the most defining element of Mental Illness, one that makes assigning a score something that I seriously don’t want to do yet must if my nightmares are to remain gorilla-free. I did, and I’m sure you little fucking heroes have already drawn your own indisputable and entirely objective opinions, but it needs to be stressed that the only thing truly wrong with this latest offering by Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals is Philip H. Anselmo. The songwriting on Mental Illness is concise and focused, by all means ten tracks in 46 minutes should not feel as painfully infinite as Phil’s shit-throated misanthropy makes it seem. Sure, the mix is a bit rough, with the guitars being so front and center that even Gonzales’ pummeling tends to take a back seat to the strings, but there are far worse things happening here which are beyond the bands control, and even Lord Swanö couldn’t save Mental Illness from the Anselmo plague. All the chugtastic grooves in the world ain’t shit when your vocalist is.

Listening to Choosing Mental Illness As a Virtue is something like trying to capture a picture of an interesting landscape while constantly getting photobombed by Phil Anselmo. There’s definitely something worth experiencing to be had here, but this guy keeps fucking it all up by simply being there. Don’t let the harsh words or generous score fool you, The Illegals are a worthwhile death/sludge act with a worthless vocalist, they are wasting their time and talent being lead by a filterless frontman.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Season of Mist Records
Websites: phaillegals.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/philipillegals
Releases Worldwide: January 26th, 2018

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A long time ago, on a website far, far away, I stumbled across a trve underground gem: Pantheion, the punishing debut of South Africa’s Crow Black Sky. Their take on blackened death was unique and impressive, and though the website was deemed a complete failure and ultimately collapsed into obscurity, I never lost interest in Crow Black Sky. Years passed, proper whore websites rose to power, and albums came and went, all without so much as some light clucking from the promising act. My tiny, blackened heart-thing spent many long nights petitioning a Crow-less sky, lifting its skinny metaphoric fists like antennas to Jørn and praying for the call of the bird. Eventually my hope went the way of common sense, gone and pretty much forgotten. So it goes, yo. Then on January 17, 2018, Jørn sent me a miracle. Well, actually Bandcamp sent me an email, but I think you know where I’m going with this: brand new Crow Black Sky, bitches! After years of impatiently waiting, I was more than ready for Sidereal Light: Volume One.

I was not at all ready for Sidereal Light: Volume One. Beyond the mouth-watering implications of the whole ‘Volume One’ after eight years of silence, I was also quite pleasantly surprised to quickly realize that Crow Black Sky had done the impossible and spent their time between albums learning and growing as a band. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ryan Higgo’s frankly ridiculous improvement handling lead vocals. While there were some comparatively weaker vocal moments on Pantheion, I never felt that they needed any drastic upgrades, and I certainly never expected the leaps forward to Amestigon and Anagnorisis levels that Higgo accomplishes here. “Lightless, Lifeless” is anything but, with Higgo’s trvly demonic vocals stealing the song and instilling it with far more life than you might expect from its 8:09 runtime. Folks, we’re talking a strengthened vocal progression and character development on a magnitude similar to In Flames’ discography played in reverse.

The unexpectedly enhanced vocals emerging from an eight years silent cocoon were reward enough after all this time, but the one-two punch of their newfound mastery of song structure in previously uncharted sonic solar systems proved to be the cake, icing, and cherry in this feast of Crow. Where Pantheion displayed clear skill and potential with its Behemoth-does-Winterhorde blackened death fury, Sidereal Light holds unquestionable dominion over the last kingdom I expected the band to claim: the final fucking frontier. This is an atmospheric black metal album Mesarthim or Mare Cognitum would be proud to have created, its four tracks chock full of shimmering ambience and calm, vacuous passages that rip us from the apocalyptic battlegrounds of Pantheion and straight into the terrifying expanses of space. “Ascendant” all but beams the listener directly into the constellations with its cascading intro, and it only goes furiously, beautifully up from there, each song merging naturally into an album best experienced as one start-to-finish journey.

It’s surely no coincidence that this emboldened performance and marked directional shift in the bands sound comes on the heels of some lineup adjusting. Two guitarists and the original bassist left the band between now and Pantheion, leaving only Gideon Lamprecht, Lawrence Jaeger and Ryan Higgo to respectively handle the guitar, percussion, and vocal/bass work of Crow Black Sky. Stripped to its core and given time to seethe and grow in the dark, this new-ish incarnation of the band utterly defies the notion of a sophomore slump, its soaring strings, perfectly punctuated percussion and vicious vocals fusing into something which surpasses its predecessor entirely. The aggression has been dialed down ever so slightly, but only in the sense that they’ve learned how to properly simmer in their rage, going full-on supernova between appropriate periods of cold tranquility. “Veils” demonstrates this newfound pacing proficiency to stellar effect, floating through serene TesseracT-ian nebulae and harrowing Aureole-ian darkness without batting an eye or missing a beat.

I’ve heard of bands maturing and improving, but I never thought I’d witness it in my lifetime. Sidereal Light: Volume One is an unexpected mini masterpiece of sorts, a 46 minute voyage to the stars told in 4 tracks which blend seamlessly and beautifully into a true testament to the growth and development of Crow Black Sky. With the sky clearly not being the limit, the bar for Volume 2 has been set astronomically high, and while I don’t relish the thought of another eight year Crow dormancy, it will be worth the pain of patience if the band can maintain this trajectory.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Independent Release
Websites: crowblacksky.bandcamp.com | crowblacksky.com | facebook.com/crowblacksky
Releases Worldwide: January 17th, 2018

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Italy’s Abysmal Grief have been doing horror-themed doomed things for 22 years. That’s a lot of time to be doing anything, perhaps enough that one might expect downright brilliance, but riddle me this: when’s the last time you encountered a brilliant 22-year-old? Sure, managing to not die for 20+ years might inherently create an illusion of maturity and shit-having-togetherness, but keep in mind that there is at least one 29-year-old man out there — we’ll just call him “Bob” — who believes that planet Earth is flat and that airplanes grant wishes. My point: age is not necessarily indicative of wisdom. Blasphema Secta is the fifth full-length by a band with over two decades of experience, but how much have they really learned from their time in the crypt?

The heavy Hammonded instrumental “Intro (The Occult Lore)” parts the sepulchral doors and checks off all the required horror doom boxes with creepy keyboards, eerie ambient effects and a foreboding monologue, revealing the first lesson that Abysmal Grief have taken to their undead hearts: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Standard tropes of the genre make their obligatory appearances throughout the album, yet their haunting presence is consistently inflicted tastefully enough that the end result feels more like receiving wisdom from the dead rather than beating their horses. Ominous incantations on “Witchlord” give the song character despite a slightly stilted delivery, and the wind sounds connecting each track facilitate cohesion while affecting an atmosphere akin to finding oneself in a classic horror film. Approaching footsteps, screams in the distance, The Organ of Doom®… it’s all here, and it may have been everywhere else before, but lesson one tells us that this is ok. Who needs innovation when you already know what works?

The stock sonic stage props might not warrant eye-rolling from those prowling the Angry Metal Catacombs for Abysmal Grief‘s particular take on metal — this is Italian horror doom, after all — but the unimaginative songwriting is a bane on all genres, and no amount of cult-y chatter can bury that particular body. To wit, every offering on Blasphema Secta lurks in one musical shadow or other for just a little too long, usually thanks to vocalist/keyboardist Labes C Necrothytus’s obsession with repeating keyboard melodies. This brings us to lesson two: sometimes less is more. I’m not trying to blow anyone’s mind here, but I don’t need to hear a melody or riff 666 times before I’m able to move on to the rest of the song. Furthermore, “When Darkness Prevails” benefits no one with its presence, an instrumental interlude of sorts comprised of chimes, keyboards and Halloween sounds dragged out for over five minutes and 100% unnecessary. Proceed with caution, for here there be filler.

With all of this talk about things that affect the music out of the way, let’s talk about, I dunno, the music. It’s true that this corpse suffers some bloat, and there may even be a touch of cheese around the edges, but there’s no denying that the music of Blasphema Secta itself is some quality stuff. Guitarist Regen Graves plots a straightforward yet entertaining course through all the right rockin’ doom territory, his six strings o’ gloom wandering the stylistic burial grounds of such acts as Ghost, Orange Goblin, and Stillborn, crafting the solid — though somewhat unambitious — rhythms and riffs that make tracks like “Ruthless Profaners” and “Behold the Corpse Revived” downright fun. Think The Necromancers with Lordi’s keyboardist doing My Dying Bride things with 85% of any of those bands’ songwriting capabilities, and you’ll be in the right graveyard. Moreover, for all his sins of repetition on the keys, Necrothytus repents with his killer vocals. The dude’s voice is made for the material, alternating between unsettling breathy, rasping cleans and truly evil harsh vocals which lend themselves to these songs of the occult so very, very well.

All in all, it’s clear that Abysmal Grief have learned a trick or two over the years, even if they still haven’t managed to completely master doomin’ it. The music of Blasphema Secta is strong more often than not, and despite preferring the output of several other bands doing their thing this January I can safely say that “Witchlord” is the Muppet Song o’ the Year so far. While I would typically hope for tighter songwriting from so seasoned an act, there’s no denying that Abysmal Grief know what they’re doing, and they could certainly be dooming worse.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Terror From Hell Records
Websites: abysmalgrief.com
Releases Worldwide: January 13th, 2018

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This January, the Angry Metal Gods saw fit to bless us with multitudes of favor during what strange, countless aeons of headbanging have typically proven to be the darkest of times for trve believers, and we all say thank-ya. February it may be, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to say goodbye to Jørnuary tidings, and it’s definitely not time to stop saying thank-ya. By the deity-defying powers of Muppets, France, and procrastination, let us bask in the revitalizing glory of 2018’s expectations-shattering induction for just a little longer. Friends, meet Viscères, the second full-length by Bind Torture Kill.

By all means, keep basking, but be warned: there is nothing peaceful or pleasant here. Any such notions dissipate with the deceptive fog of “Fléau” as the creeping intro violently gives way to “Au fond du trou,” and the nature of Viscères is revealed: this… is… Hardcore! Well, post-hardcore. Or crusty grindcore. Or blackened Converge-core. Hmmm… Perhaps pinning an identity on BTK isn’t so straightforward after all, but I’ll tell you what: it’s fucking brutal. “Perte et Fracas” alone is almost more than the neck can handle, tearing through some grimy grooves sprinkled with mini Mastodon moments before building into an absolutely unhinged explosion that simply begs for live play. Viscères is 34 minutes of such merciless violence, a vicious assault spearheaded by spastic guitars and the kind of pummeling percussive performance that makes you feel sorry for the drum kit. Throw some truly murderous blackened hardcore screams into the arsenal, and BTK have everything they need to keep things at 11 at all times.

This, apparently, does not include a bassist, as only 3 people are responsible for this killer racket and none of them do bass things. Guitarist Yann Alexandre does an excellent job Converge-ing spaz-core rhythms and rowdy riffy bits sans friends in low places, and drummer Benjamin Garçon certainly doesn’t need any help blasting the songs into surgically precise bits of synchronised explosive glory. Interviews with the band reveal that a custom amp setup assists Yann in maintaining a sonic balance, an experiment that pays off remarkably well and testifies to the creative headspace of BTK. To hear the overclocked, apocalyptic crust of “Chacal” and know that that sonic death-storm, all that noise, is made by just two musicians, presumably human… praise be to Jørn. Moreover, the thoughtfulness of the songwriting is of far higher quality than one might expect from a young act specializing in such discordant fare. This somewhat surprising command of writing is what makes “Pestilence” work so absolutely fucking well, harvesting Converge and Slugdge bits and patiently (but brutally) assembling a crusty, raging monster. It would be no small feat for Jacob Bannon himself to top or even perform over this over-the-top performance.

However Converge-ant BTK‘s instrumental section may be, fellow countryman Mathieu Nogues of Eryn Non Dae. is vocalist Olivier Alexandre’s feral spirit animal. The two adorn their respective bands in near identical screams of passionate hardcore wrath, and Olivier’s seething delivery augmented by BTK‘s higher paced instrumentation makes a compelling argument for Olivier wearing the pipes better. Irrelevant comparisons aside, everyone’s’ performance here is frighteningly intense, and the collective bloodlust pays out in every song. Each frenetic burst of strings and skins is somehow able to breathe amidst its own carnage, and the similarly balanced vocals work as part of the instrumental pack rather than attacking as standalone jackals, allowing every moment of mayhem to coexist and coalesce into something colossal and incandescent from start to finish. Whether they’re petitioning a hardcore sky, rabidly consuming crust or doing anything else in that loud and filthy vein, these lads know how to write engaging songs which (surprise, surprise) combine to create a very engaging album. There is no filler here, even the intro and the Soothsayer-y segue track “Maelstrom” serve a function and maintain the listeners attention, providing some of the only breathing moments allowed on Viscères and making everyone else who pulls such moves look bad.

This type of metal, with a few notable exceptions such as Gaza or Heathen Beast, is not typically renowned for its artistic maturity, and hearing such in the midst of all the other Jørnuary blessings was almost more than this Muppet could take. Viscères is something BTK should be proud of, and something that you should be ashamed of yourself for not having already if you’re among that unfortunate camp. It could be centvries before we are blessed with another January is bountiful as this, don’t spit in the Angry Metal Gods’ faces by leaving this psychotic stone unturned.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 5-9 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: WOOAAARGH Records
Websites: btk.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/BTK.bind.torture.kill.metal
Releases Worldwide: January 26th, 2018

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If your home country only has a whopping 172 bands documented on The Metal Archives, with roughly half of them split up or otherwise disbanded, there’s a decent chance that relatively few people have ever heard your particular take on metal before. Such is the case for Erdve, a fledgling four-piece emerging from the enigmatic Lithuanian underground. However, it being 2018 and the internet being what it is, there is also a decent chance that everyone has already heard and done the fuck right out of your particular take on metal before, regardless of how far underground you dwell. Presented with such a paradoxical plight whilst pondering potentially plucking Erdve‘s debut from the Promo Pit of Possibility – would Vaitojimas just be more of the same, or could this be something (gasp) unique? – I ultimately put my faith in the label, Season of Mist, and ran with it. SoM music is MoM music far more often than not, so fuck it, let’s see if this Erdve is anything to shout about.

For better or worse, we live in a time when a large, blackened chunk of death metal has been converted to fanatic acolytes of Deathspell Omega and Ulcerate, ushering in a discordant new age of frenetic, furious clones à la Meshuggah‘s unwitting birth of ye 000lde djent era. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – such is largely Season of Mist’s thing, after all, and I’ve already demonstrated my unwavering trvst in them by selecting this album in the first place – but an unforeseeable outbreak of irresponsible ape-ing has lead to excessive atonal atmospheric pollution, nonetheless. In the case of Vaitojimas, this same untrendy trend is being kept alive and well, preserved in sludge and given a revitalizing shot of hardcore vocals. Atonal chords and dissonant atmospheres which have become the basic building blocks of blackened –anything in 2018 are as much Erdve’s stock-in-trade as they are anyone else’s these days, but a keen grasp on songwriting and a youthful propensity for sonic exploration make this outing more of a story retold than a corpse reanimated.

The coolest thing that Erdve do with the standard sonic palette of today’s brvtality is that they opt to actually do something with it, playing with potential rather than merely mimicking the shit out of what’s already been done. The dark dichotomy displayed in tracks like “Apverktis” and “Atraja” reveals a significant post-metal element to the material, instilling it with a welcome sense of uniqueness while facilitating natural song progression. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of labelmates Zhrine, Erdve make frequent pilgrimages to postal lakes, baptizing their death metal demons in blackened calm before each beast is reborn in chaos anew. Where all six tracks maintain an otherwise constant state of intoxicating violence recalling a more brooding Ulcerate, such moments of relative relaxation not only punctuate the ensuing explosions, these pensive passages also provide an opportunity to catch ones fucking breath. Those familiar with the sonic scene I’m trying to paint know how stifling such pandemonian fare can be, and why it’s such a mark in Erdve’s favor that they have manage to wield such wild weaponry with finesse and grace on their first outing.

However, an old dog doing its tricks a little differently can only do so much to stave off déjà vu, and at its core Vaitojimas is very much somewhere that many metal heads have already traveled to. The postal element is cool, for sure, but I’m overstating it by this point, and it’s not like fans of Jupiterian, Seedna or Deathspell Omega haven’t heard this stuff before. “Isnara” might just as easily have been done by any of those bands, putting the style’s templates for dissonant violence and discomforting moments of stillness to work and crafting something darkly familiar, enjoyable if not exactly engulfed in originality. Vaitojimas clings to this descriptor for the entirety of its onslaught, 37 minutes of blackened rehash draped in post-metal, sprinkled with vicious hardcore shouts and paced out just appropriately enough to feel alive.

While tracks like “Isnara” and “Atraja” possess a certain strength which might qualify them as standout songs, Vaitojimas itself is largely nondescript, a congenial walk through familiar territory as post metal clouds soak the charred ground in relatively inconsequential sludge. We’ve been here before, and I’m certain we’ll be back again before too long. Those desiring envelope-abusing innovation may wish to look elsewhere, but those loyal to the Ulcerate Omega movement that is Season of Mist’s bread and butter will find themselves right at home.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Season of Mist Records
Websites: erdvesom.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/erdvelt
Releases Worldwide: February 9th, 2018

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Contrary to popular belief, researchers have recently concluded that all metal does not, in fact, sound the same. Turns out, there are completely different styles of metal altogether. Like, tons of them. There’s a speed one, and a black one, and a doooom one and a melodeath… *ahem* Anyway, the point of my having shattered your world with such unfathomable concepts was to pave the way for blasphemous trvth bomb number two: it’s not always about the riffs, yo. While the vast majority of bands build habitats of interrelated rhythm and melody rustled into structured songs, there are some species of metallus angrium who dwell in the ethereal murk of more primitive environments, taking up residence in emotion itself and eschewing traditional song form in favor of sustaining a particular emotive resonance. It’s called a mood album, you philistine poseurs, and today’s mood is “dismal violent insanity”, brought to you by Mouvement and the good folks at Chaos Echœs.

Now, if you’re as brilliant as your Angry Metal Readership implies, you’ve probably deduced that this second outing by these French harbingers of sonic bedlam does not adhere to the traditional tetherings of verses, choruses, bridges, et al. Though its six tracks are typically discernable enough from each other to be categorized as individual songs, Mouvement is very much an all-encompassing progression of itself, a journey one must undertake from beginning to end in order to fully appreciate the experience. If only there was a word for such a phenomenon… but I digress. Spending nearly 33 minutes with the album is a ritual, a process which can only yield its desired results when seen through to completion. Given the dark delirium of Chaos Echœs‘s blackened avant garde ways, not everyone is going to be up for the task – particularly those who opt to sample a few seconds of a track or two and proclaim their judgment final – but trvst me, it’s the only way.

Those already familiar with the band might be somewhat nervous to learn that Chaos Echœs have shed themselves of a guitarist since our very own Roquentin let that angry little metal light of his shine on their 2015 debut full-length, Transient. Rest assured, nothing about their sound has gotten weaker, safer, or any closer to resembling the work of sane minds as a result. The chaos begins with a vicious, gurgling scream, and the music more than matches that macabre energy for the entirety of Mouvement. While it’s true that Steffan Thanneur’s bass contributions are somewhat squashed by the surounding tumult, brothers Kalevi and Ilmar Uibo deliver their respective performances on guitar and drums with furious vigor and evil genius to parallel their malevolent muse, Portal. Crashing cymbals, droning atonal melodies and deep n’ dirty grooves reminiscent of dearly departed Australian death/doom machine diSEMBOWELMENT are what Chaos Echœs thrive on, and the absence of a founding member has done little to dull the savage attack of Mouvement.

Though the relatively minimalist stylings of the album might not require an army of brilliant minds to produce, the music itself is not exactly simple. Cooking up something noodly and giving it special effect zazz is easy, but keeping a largely-instrumental blackened avant-garde album engaging and effective? Not so much. Shaping the building blocks of Portal and Blut Aus Nord into something able to maintain itself while largely eschewing any kind of vocal presence requires patience and painstaking attention to subtle detail, and Chaos Echœs have proven themselves quite up to the task. Opting to let the music speak for itself not only forces listeners to project their own images of fear and despair against Mouvements infernal backdrop, this approach also gives the brief passages which contain any blatantly human noises – specifically the albums harrowing opener and the lobotomized wailing of its final track – a unique sense of significance and raw urgency. Sometimes less is more, yo.

Mouvement is not a traditional metal album. It is not a black metal album, a doom album, or anything along any such lines. It is, to be perfectly frank, a musical movement, an emotional tale told in largely wordless song. Granted, there’s no happy ending, or beginning, or middle here, but it’s certainly a horror story worth hearing for those avant guardians of blackened trvth who feed on the nonconformist filth of metals darkest, vilest recesses. Riff machine it mayn’t be, yet Mouvement manages to strike the right angry metal chords in this particular Muppet, and at the end of the day that’s trvly all that any band can hope for.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions
Websites: Chaosechœs.bandcamp.com | ChaosEchœsOfficial | Facebook.com/ChaosEchœs
Releases Worldwide: February 16th, 2018

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