![Konvent – Call Down the Sun [Things You Might Have Missed 2022]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Konvent-Call-Down-the-Sun-01-768x768.jpg)
“Two years on and Konvent is back, and this time, they’ve nailed it. Call Down the Sun is slightly slower in pace than Puritan Masochism, edging just a teensy, tiny bit further toward the funeral doom end of the death doom spectrum. If the record doesn’t slow quite so much as to actually reach funeral doom pace, it is certainly funereal in tone and mood.” Sundown, mood down.
“Maybe it’s just me but, if I were looking to quote ‘rave reviews’ of a band, I wouldn’t necessarily single out the phrase “Earnest, vibrant music specked with impressive nuance.” Nevertheless, this is the phrase that a promo blurb writer selected from our review of Sammal’s last effort, Suuliekki. Treble Yell, who penned that review in March 2018, had gone on an entirely non-suspicious but very sudden and permanent sabbatical by the time I was press ganged into service later that year. But he clearly enjoyed, without loving, Suuliekki. Since then, Sammal has shed both its keyboard player and bassist. Perhaps you, like me, think that for a band like Sammal, which trades in progressive 70s-inspired neo-folk, both of those positions are fairly critical. Well, these three Finns laugh in your face.” Folk is not afraid of you.
![Tishina – Uvod [Things You Might Have Missed 2022]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Tishina-Uvod-01.jpg.webp)
“For the second year running, I find myself giving the TYMHM treatment to an album with Cyrillic in the title and which is right on the EP/album dividing line. As is my wont at this point, I am giving the record the benefit of the doubt because between I don’t frankly care whether it’s an album or not, it is deserving of your attention. Тишина / Tishina, meaning ‘silence’ in Serbian, is a project masterminded by Branislav Panić of the blackened death metal band, Bane. Serbia strikes back!
“Martin Leth Andersen has been active on the Danish extreme metal for years. The Undergang—no, not that one, this one—bassist is in at least five active projects, with Strychnos, where he handles bass and vox, ticking along since 1998, without releasing an album. Until now. A four-piece combining death metal with a black’n’roll vibe, Strychnos seems to rear up every decade or so, putting out a demo and a single around the time of its inception, an EP and appearing on a compilation in 2011, and then going quiet again until 2021, when another demo dropped. Now, here we are with A Mother’s Curse. Inspired by the ending of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Tale of a Mother.” Mother’s murk.
The debut record from San Francisco’s Forlesen hit me at a weird time. At the height of the first, very strict COVID lockdown in the UK, Hierophant Violent struck like a (very, very slow-moving) freight train. A masterclass in slow-build songwriting, exuding patience, confidence and skill in its execution, the album hooked me from the first spin, which was on a sunlit walk, taken as my one permitted piece of outdoor exercise for the day. Combining post-metal and drone with flashes of black metal and doom, Hierophant Violent snagged my first ever 4.5 and with it—the album, not my score—Forlesen secured places on three staff end-of-year lists.” Forlesen or Moresen.
“A four-piece out of New Jersey, Cassius King is led by guitarist Dan Lorenzo (Hades, Non-Fiction) and features former Overkill drummer Ron Lipnicki, Vessel of Light bassist Jimmy Schulman and on vox we have Jason McMaster (Watchtower, Spastic Ink, Dangerous Toys). Make of that what you will. Cassius King’s 2021 debut, Field Trip, was a straightforward piece of stoner-influenced heavy metal, with hints of classic doom.” Jersey royalty.
“‘I miss SubRosa, and I don’t understand why there’s no other band out there like them,’ lamented a poor, tortured soul beneath a recent review of mine. Well, ask and ye shall receive, as the saying goes. Here I am to present for your entertainment, enjoyment(!), and critical assessment, The Otolith, a band that has risen from the ashes and sports four members of symphonic doom quintet SubRosa.” SunRoses to the faithful.
“Amaurot is a four-piece gothic death doom band hailing from Sweden and fronted, and co-founded, by German vocalist Lisa Rieger (also of Hydra). And this review of their full-length debut, … To Tread the Ancient Waters, is woefully late. I make no apologies for that but know that there are Reasons. Valid Reasons. Rieger founded the band in 2019 with guitarist Peter Svensson (ex-Goatess, among others), who also handles keyboards.” Late to the grave.
“All the way back in March 2019, Norwegian black metal quartet Nordjevel impressed Grymm with sophomore effort Necrogensis. Snagging a 3.5 from the Grymmster, Nordjevel brought icy riffs and Norwegian fury to his Floridian home but it was not a record completely free from issues and had a notably stronger second half, suffering also from a little bit of bloat and/or lack of self-editing. With a line-up that has held steady since Necrogenesis and features former members of Dark Funeral, 1349 (drummer, Dominator), Morbid Angel and Zyklon (guitarist Destructhor), can Nordjevel now up their consistency, tighten their songwriting and take things to the next level on third album Gnavhòl?” Beyond the Grymm horizon.
“German stalwarts Battlesword have been out there, waging metal war, since 1999. Despite that lengthy tour of service, new platter Towards the Unknown will be only the band’s fourth full-length, with a yawning 13-year gap between their debut, Falling in Triumph, and the sophomore effort, Banners of Destruction. Battlesword’s last outing, And Death Cometh Upon Us, was released in the twentieth year of the band’s existence and continued to beat a path through the well-trodden , blood-soaked fields of melodic death metal. With more than a little Amon Amarth in the sound.” Unknown blades ov wrath.
