“After the immensely affecting self-titled debut released at the end of 2018, Acathexis rapidly became one of my more closely watched new acts. A dream team of Mare Cognitum’s Jacob Buczarski (drums), Déhà (guitars, bass), and Los Males del Mundo’s Dany Tee (vocals, lyrics) comprises the talent, and melancholic black metal rife with weeping melodies and misty atmosphere makes up the content.” Super groups, man…
“After maybe 300 reviews, I’d estimate I’ve locked up several kilobytes of server space recommending artists work with Colin Marston. As a result, I of course take full credit for all the bands that line up to record with him and receive a small monthly stipend from the Menegroth budget. But not every band has to take that advice, and since my kickback is limited by studio throughput, I’m in the market for another producer to praise/shake down. That’s where Argentina’s Tumba de Carne come in.” Tumba thumper.
“Much like the Wizard album I reviewed a couple of months ago, this promo was assigned to me by Lord Protector Steel Druhm himself. Not only that, but the Argentina-based Feanor shares vocalist Sven D’Anna with their Germanic brethren in Wizard. Wizard’s latest was a fun and empowering romp through beer-soaked heavy metal lands, and given that my mental health has been under some strain lately due to work circumstances, I thought that some cheesy déjà vu might be just what the non-Grier doctor ordered. Let’s see if Feanor can put the metal in my head again.” Irresponsible power.
“There’s something special about South American death metal. I don’t know what it is, but the continent seems to have no shortage of bands that pair a raw, uncompromising, and wholly sincere approach with a strange and otherworldly mystique. Peru’s Mortem and Chile’s Atomic Aggressor, for instance, both excel at infusing the sound of old Morbid Angel with a sense of ancient and mysterious horror, while Chile’s Death Yell use less discernible influences to craft equally dark and aggressive material. Thus, I was quite excited when AMG Himself recommended I cover Draconis, an Argentinian death metal band who I’ve never heard of before.” Eternal muddle.
“One of the biggest water hazards in the reviewing game is tackling a unknown band with a decent sized discography already in place that you somehow missed out on entirely. Though I usually try to avoid these challenging situations, Argentina’s prog-power wielders Lord Divine made me take a risky play here. A prolific unit, they boast four previous albums in addition to today’s topic of interest, Facing Chaos. I’d never heard of them, but the promo write up checked all the right boxes and mentioned all the right influences, so I took a cautious flyer.” Chaos is a ladder.
“Next up on the AMG stack of rotating power metal promos is the fourth studio album from Argentinian independent sympho-heavy/power entity Preludio Ancestral, a band heretofore bound to digital obscurity in the South American underground. The band’s past fits with my general impression of many underground metal acts from South American nations: a strange amalgamation of Spanish and English lyricism, bizarre album cover art, and a penchant for very eccentric, almost anarchical musical stylings that run the gamut from alternative rock, Manowar-hailing shirtless heavy metal, and Euro-styled power metal across individual albums.” Hail, hail the shirtless.
“Somewhere along my personal timeline of listening to extreme music I formed an imaginary line dividing two equally valid camps of folk metal. On one side, you have your bands of brooding boys who like to pose next to frozen streams for their promo shots in between discussions of just how great Windir was; on the other, you have your gangs of drunken revelers, crowding into the nearest tavern to relate raucous tales of wenches and trolls to any half-willing passersby.” Is that a troll on the cover or are you just happy to see me?
