“I’m continuously anticipating new material from Baring Teeth. The Texan trio’s avant-garde and combative exercises in dissonance and unsettling atmosphere make up some of the most thought provoking material in the world of death metal, steadfastly refusing the accessible and the predictable. Few other bands can match the density and sheer shock of their experiments, and three albums in they’re still surprising me.” What bare teeth you have!
Avante Garde
Sigh – Heir to Despair Review
“Some of the band’s previously bagged waterfowl are among the rarest and colorful to ever take flight, flashing their lavish plumage in iridescent hues and streaming with fanciful feathers. After the modern classic of In Somniphobia and Graveward’s acceptable, if not always exciting, follow-up, the band needed something different to end this quartet with something more powerful than mere exhalation.” Where the Heir is thin.
To End It All – Scourge of Woman Review
“To End It All’s debut, Scourge of Woman, is a monument to noise, anguish and righteous, burning rage; abrasive and chaotic, yet subtle and restrained, defiantly refusing to coddle the listener.” Noise and art.
Madder Mortem – Marrow Review
“Rare is the band that truly sounds like no one else. Either standing on the shoulders of giants, or innovating their way to hundreds of copycats, few have no comparable peers, followers, or ancestors. Madder Mortem, also known as Norway’s best-kept secret, are one of those bands.” Post-Madder Mortem.
Potmos Hetoimos – Vox Medusae Review
“The typical pitfall of pseudo-experimental metal bands is their tendency towards buffoonish self-aggrandizement and the accompanying insistence on pompous philosophical themes. Often drawing inspiration from edgy, coincidentally anti-humanistic philosophies and providing a “thinking man’s take” on black metal, they immerse themselves in childish interpretations of nihilism and neoreactionary doctrines. The similarly arty and bombastically theatrical Potmos Hetoimos, the long-standing one-man progressive sludge project of Baltimorean Matt Matheson, is an antipode of such acts.” Humanistic is as humanism does.
Manes – Slow Motion Death Sequence Review
“The first time I heard the Norwegian oddity known as Manes, I was in grad school. That fateful day, I was grading organic chemistry exams, locked away in that windowless closet of a grading room. With hours of work ahead of me, I took the time to find some new music to ease the pain. After getting caught in the rabbit’s hole of ‘similar artists’ and the ‘who-played-with-who’ links of Metal Archives, I emerged with Manes. And, I figured, this oughta do.” Music for destroying futures.
Kontinuum – No Need to Reason Review
“Last month, one of our devoted thralls loyal readers was bemoaning the fact that we haven’t used the “Non-Metal Metal Things” tag in a while. Well, here you go, courtesy of dark Icelandic rockers (and Madam X favorites) Kontinuum. Why is the Huckster reviewing this album instead of Madam X?” Icelandic mystery.
Yer Metal is Olde: Gorguts – Obscura
“Obscura is flat out the most influential technical death metal album ever written. Steeve Hurdle and Luc Lemay’s paradigm-establishing use of dissonance and deliberate composition drew up an instant classic almost de novo. If ever a death metal album was divinely inspired, Obscura was, and once this box was opened, there was never a chance of resealing its contents.” The birth of evolution.
Zeal and Ardor – Stranger Fruit Review
“It takes a lot to excite and intrigue jaded metalheads like me. As our recent expose demonstrated, we here at Angry Metal Guy Hype-Deflating Industries LTD. have become harder and harder to impress over the years, to the point where we keep our superlatives locked in a gun safe which requires written permission to be opened. Nevertheless, Zeal and Ardor’s debut, Devil is Fine piqued quite a few of us with its bizarre split personality and penchant for hooks. The follow-up to that Bandcamp smash-hit, Stranger Fruit has been anxiously anticipated here, where in our best hopes we imagined an album just as catchy and eclectic but more focused and complex.” Fruits and regrets.
Panegyrist – Hierurgy Review
“Steel Druhm‘s black metal appreciation days have largely come and gone as we’ve grown apart and developed irreconcilable differences. Because I’m such a self-aware, introspective gent, I give the genre a wide birth when it comes to promo pluckery lest I savage a band for my own lack of interest. But a strange thing happened on the way to the sump recently. Madam X was sampling new arrivals and I didst hear such a compelling cacophony that I simply had to know who was responsible.” Risky blackness.