“Back in 2020, I heaped an enormous amount of praise upon Effigy of Nightmares, the third full-length album from Ohio’s Valdrin, and while that record constitutes the exceedingly rare occurrence where time tempers my initial enthusiasm (I’d probably bring it down to a 4.0 at this point), I still hold it in high regard. I was caught up not only by Valdrin’s melodic black metal songwriting ability but also by the band’s incredible brand of storytelling.” Lords of stories.
“Well, well, well. How time flies. On 7 November 2018, my first ever review, under the unassuming alias of Nameless_N00b_17, was posted for The Grand Manifestation by Sweden’s Third Storm. Almost five years on, despite various spates of chronic overrating and hopefully showing some improvement in my writing, I am still here to see Third Storm return with their sophomore album, The Locust Mantra.” Bugnado.
“Forever Below is what I’m going to (cheesily) call old-school grit with new-school wit. The chilling tone of the guitars, the spidery, urgent riffing, the howling vocals, the thrashy tempos, pull from the best of second-wave black and blackened thrash–think Dissection and Goatwhore. But the intelligently dynamic and melodically-developed compositions pull this base sound into the modern world, and deepen their impact.” As above, so below.
“A “Valravn” is a supernatural being, often in the form of a knight or raven, that consumes the dead on the battlefield. The name is apt because the band’s sound is a cannibalization of many black metal bands that have come before. Specifically, the icy combination of melodicism and aggression pioneered by Dissection, Sacramentum and Darkthrone.” Devour to evolve.
“The Great Demise combined Dissection black, Hypocrisy death, and Amon Amarth melodeath to deliver a rollercoaster of intricacies, riff changes, builds, and atmospheres. At times, it worked. At times, it didn’t. As a whole, The Great Demise was missing the fluidity to pull everything together. Now they’re back with a Covid-inspired follow-up whose theme concerns mental health. This concept alone instills high-charged emotion into the album. But how Sodomisery delivers it completely floored me.” Sodom misers!
“It’s been eight years since the band released their lukewarm Antiliv album, and I’ve been craving the nastiness that makes them so great ever since. While many will argue Antiliv was a great album, it lacked the energy the band typically brings to the table. No matter who this duo hires on the drums, everyone gives it all to each release. But I didn’t quite feel that on Antiliv. It doesn’t matter if you disagree because Helvegr doesn’t give a rat’s ass about our opinions.” Tsjuder jumping.
“It’s no secret that the pandemic put the kibosh on the live music scene for quite some time, with aftershocks of that phenomenon still felt today. For the future of many artists releasing material late in 2019 or early 2020—like Cloak with their sophomore record The Burning Dawn—the inability to perform their latest material live to help support their reputation, their audiences, and their financials caused great strain and much uncertainty. Thankfully, Cloak dedicated every spare minute unceremoniously granted to them by the pandemic to focus on writing and perfecting new material.” Cloaking tiger, hidden flame.
“A confluence of circumstances made this review an eon late. Napalm sent us a late stream, and none of my lazy co-writers checked if we’d gotten a promo until I did so last week. But I was happy to save the day, as usual. Germany’s Thulcandra has been freezing up a melodic blackened death storm since 2003, and their past work earned high marks from the Ape Himself, but we’ve mysteriously missed their last twelve years of material.” Ressection.
“The artwork for Arcane Paths to Resurrection struck me immediately, and not only because it’s cool. There was something familiar about it, and after a little digging, I found that the same artist, Artem Grigoryev, is behind both this and the cover of Suffering Hour’s The Cyclic Reckoning. What’s funny is that even before discovering this, I was thinking about how much Decipher’s debut reminded me of Suffering Hour. It has a similar grittiness, a similar piercing edge to its guitar tones, and similar thrashy energy.” Suffering for art.
“As someone allergic to major keys, I find a natural home with metal, which tends to focus on the minor, or indeed, dissonance. We’ve all heard non-metal-listeners in our lives pontificate about how angry metal sounds. We all also know that it can bring happiness no matter how nasty it seems on the surface. Allow me to introduce you to some extreme metal out to prove this with a vengeance. Spain’s Frozen Dawn make their Transcending Obscurity debut with LP number four, a slice of melodic black metal fizzing with rambunctious energy. Polished and fresh, yet still retaining an air of the dark, occult past.” Stay frosty.
